Summer Photos + Preparing for Autumn

Summer Photos

Summer is coming to an end. As I've often mentioned, summer is my favourite season and I'm not keen on winter! So while the shift from winter to spring feels more hopeful and "lighter" to me, the one from summer to autumn isn't quite the same. We're now moving towards the darker half of the year. But  I do like autumn; I love the beautiful autumn colours of the trees changing during September and October, the golden days with a "mellower" light and the cosiness! I also like the events such as Hallowe'en/Samhain and Bonfire Night.

This post is a combined one with some photos from over the summer and ideas for preparing for autumn. :)

The past couple of years I posted some pictures from my summer. You can see them here:

End of Summer (+ Full Moon Esbat Biscuits): https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/09/end-of-summer-full-moon-esbat-biscuits.html

Summer Photos: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/07/summer-photos.html

Late Summer: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/08/late-summer.html

Now here are some pics from this summer:

Worthing seafront- July.

August Update

I normally post on Sundays or Mondays, but had a bit of a difficult weekend due to personal issues, so I'm posting on a Tuesday instead. :)

Time for August's update! You can read the previous monthly updates here:


Jan: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/02/january-update.html

Feb: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-update.html

March: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/04/march-update.html

April (+ Beltane Inspiration): https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-update-beltane-inspiration.html

May: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-update.html

June: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-update.html

July (+ Lammas Inspiration):  https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/07/july-update-lammas-inpiration.html


August began with Lammas on the 1st. (Although some people celebrate on 31st July). You can see my post about it here: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/08/lammas-2019.html

I had a couple of events this month, a get together with my belly dance group at Alcampo Lounge in Brighton and a Meetup event (brunch) at West Beach Bar and Kitchen, also in Brighton. It was really windy that weekend, especially on the seafront! Here are a couple of pics from Brighton:

Brighton seafront.

Lammas 2019

Last Thursday (1st August) it was Lammas, one of my favourite sabbats. (Some people celebrate on 31st July). My main activity for this sabbat is baking and in the July Update + Lammas Inspiration post I shared some baking ideas.  I made my usual gingerbread and also had a go at making bread again this year! I don't often bake bread; the last time was Lammas 2017, although I did make a bread mix last year! The recipe I used this time is 90 Minute Man Bread from Don't Waste the Crumbs. You can find it here: https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/90-minute-man-bread/

It's called "Man Bread" because it's so easy a man can make it! No offence intended, the recipe was actually developed by "Mr Crumbs", the husband of Tiffany who runs the site, lol. :) And it only takes 90 minutes to make as you can tell by the title! It's a healthy bread recipe because it has no refined sugar and uses coconut oil instead of butter. But you can use butter or olive oil instead of coconut oil. I used butter as I did with the chocolate oatmeal bars I made in June, since I haven't bought any more coconut oil yet. I also used plain flour (what's called all-purpose in America) instead of bread flour. The recipe uses active dry yeast but I used fast action dried yeast, which means you can just add it straight to the recipe and don't need to activate it (by dissolving it in a water as in the recipe) before using,. You can read about the differences between active dry, instant and fast acting yeasts here: https://www.seriouseats.com/2018/03/all-about-dry-yeast-instant-active-dry-fast-acting-and-more.html

The bread was quite nice, I was pleased with how it turned out. Here's a picture:

July Update + Lammas Inspiration

This is  a double post (like the April Update + Beltane Inspiration one), featuring July's update and inspiration for Lammas. If you just want to read about Lammas, scroll down! :)


July Update

Here is the update for July! You can read updates for the first half of the year here:

Jan: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/02/january-update.html

Feb: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-update.html

March: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/04/march-update.html

April (+ Beltane Inspiration): https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-update-beltane-inspiration.html

May: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-update.html

June: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-update.html


In early July I went to Worthing Beach with my mum. We took the Coastliner bus. I hadn't been to the beach for a while, so that was fun. I got a strawberry ice cream from Macaris. Here are a couple of pictures from the beach:

Summer Round-up + Inspiration

 

We're now properly into summer and it's feeling like it! I've done round-up and inspiration posts for the other seasons, so now it's time for the summer one. :)

Note: If you're in the Southern Hemisphere you might like last year's Winter Round-up + Inspiration post: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/12/winter-round-up-inspiration.html

Summer is my favourite season so I'm glad we've had some nice, hotter weather recently, especially during the end of June and in early July. As I wrote in the winter post, I struggle a bit when it's colder. So summer is a lot easier for me to feel inspired by! (But there are good things about winter too). The weather is (hopefully) good, or if not it's at least not cold! It feels like there's more possibilities in summer.

The season officially starts with Litha/the Summer Solstice around 21st June and I tend to start to feel "lighter" around then. Although the days begin getting slightly shorter from then on! Then Lammas is on 1st August (some celebrate it on 31st July). It's my favourite sabbat apart from Samhain, I think because it was the first one I celebrated in 2010, and because it's during the height of summer. I'm planning to do a post with ideas for celebrating later this month. So for now I hope you enjoy this post. :)

June Update

We're already halfway through the year and it's time for the June update!

Read previous updates here:

Jan: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/02/january-update.html

Feb: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-update.html

March: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/04/march-update.html

April (+ Beltane Inspiration): https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-update-beltane-inspiration.html

May: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-update.html

This month I started a depression course with Recovery College. I've been going through a more depressive period lately, but I'm finding the course helpful so far. I also went to a meetup with an anxiety friendship group at Alcampo in Brighton a couple of weekends ago and that was fun. Yesterday was the local meetup of the Action for Happiness group I belong to as well.

I  also went to Mayberry Garden Centre with my mum (I bought my orange candle and lemonade for Litha from there; see Litha post) and had a drink in the coffee shop, a strawberry creme frappe. Here's a pic:

 

Litha 2019

Litha aka the Summer Solstice and Midsummer) was on Friday (21st June). As I mentioned in last week's post Litha Inspiration, I normally celebrate by having salad and lemonade. I made tomato and onion salad like the past few years (the recipe is from Soraya's book The Kitchen Witch) and had some with chicken, my mum's potato salad and Doritos for lunch. I used red onion this time, like with the Kachumbari I made for Beltane. Here's a picture: