Farewell to Summer

Summer and I have a bit of a complicated relationship. 

I mean, of course I love the long days and the endless opportunities to eat ice cream. However, as an extremely pale Northern British person, I have a borderline vampiric reaction to the sun. After 10 minutes in the sunshine I can practically feel myself starting to smoulder. It ain't pretty.

So, when September rolls around and autumn is on the horizon, I can feel myself starting to relax. Autumn I can do. The knitwear, scarves and the universal desire to put cinnamon on everything? Yeah. Autumn is pretty much the best season out there.

Autumn is also a season clustered with fun. Obviously there's Hallowe'en, Bonfire Night and (if you're so inclined) Oktoberfest. But also, round our neck of the woods there's a ton of other stuff I look forward to all year. The illuminations at the coast, the Lumiere Festival and the annual Saltwell Park Sculpture Day.

The latter is just around the corner in fact (it falls on Sunday 27th September this year) and - if you can believe it - is in its 30th year (just like yours truly ;) ). It's a really cool set-up - at the beginning of the day, a huge pile of wood is arranged in the centre of our beautiful park and families come and build something on the year's theme. And it's all free! In my pre-baby years, my family and I had a regular meet-up there, armed with tools and ideas. It really was so much fun and I can't wait to start building there again when our little dude is a bit older.

Our 'Sport' themed entry in 2011.

This year's theme is 'Home', which I think is a rather lovely one for their anniversary year. Even though we'll only be attending in a spectating capacity, I couldn't resist a little brainstorm of the kind of things you could build around 'Home'...

• Your house / a house

• A place an animal calls home e.g. a bear's cave, a dog kennel, a bird's nest

• Something that represents the region/town/country you call home - such as a landmark ie. the Angel of the North / the Eiffel Tower etc

• Something that makes you feel at home e.g. your bed / your sofa

• Someone who makes you feel at home e.g. your parents / children / family / pet

• A doll's house

• The home ground of your favourite sports team

• A little town or village

• An unusual example of a home i.e. a houseboat / tent / caravan / castle

• A habitat for an animal / creature e.g. a tree / seascape

I'd love to know - what would you build on the theme of home?