I've not long come back from spending a week at the International Permaculture Convergence. I slept in the car (more comfortable than it sounds), ate more good food than I've eaten in a long time, and spent most of the week outside. 

And I felt refreshed. 

When you're outside all the time, the weather seems strangely unimportant. Well, torrential rain makes a difference, but a grey sky doesn't, or a bit of drizzle, or a slight breeze. We ate outside in weather that, if I'd seen it out of the window, I'd have put the kettle on and stayed indoors. 

I promised myself that when I got home, I'd spend more time outside. And so, last weekend, I took my camera and went for a wander. 

I looked more closely than I would normally look. 

It made me want to spend more time observing the changes of the seasons, which feels appropriate given that today is the autumn equinox. 

I was lucky enough to be given both apples and damsons this week, by friends who had more than they knew what to do with. 

The apples were chopped, stewed, and put in the freezer ready for crumble. The damsons, of course, were added to, well, it would normally have been gin, but I got a bit whimsical in the shop so we now have a few bottles of damson white rum on the go. Kind of tropical autumn, if you will. 

I think autumn might just be my favourite season (but ask me again on New Years Eve when I'm sipping my damson rum and I might have changed my mind).

I've hardly spent any time in the garden this summer. I made a conscious decision in the spring not to even try to grow any vegetables this year - we'll be moving house at some point and I can't keep on top of the work required at the best of times. 

So this year has been all about low maintenance - which has mostly meant leaving the garden to fend for itself.  

I've been out there occasionally, to pick gooseberries, or drink a sneaky cup of tea. But I've not done any actual work, no pruning, barely any planting, not much weeding. Things were getting rather out of hand. 

Still, things weren't quite as bad as I thought. It's only a small garden, after all, so it doesn't take much pottering to get it back into some kind of order. 

I spent most of my time out there admiring just how many flowers the fuchsia has. Every single year I think I've killed it, and earlier this year all the flowers seemed to drop off almost as soon as they arrived, but something obviously changed and now it's looking more vibrant than ever. 

I love it, and the pink and purple flowers clash nicely with our bright red window frames. 

I spent quite a lot of time trying to take pictures of the bees on the lavender. So many bees! And so much lavender too - I've got two bushes and they've both really taken off in the last couple of years. I hadn't picked any at all but the smell was so overwhelming that I couldn't help bringing some inside to dry. 

My last task was to tackle the willow. I love the noise it makes, swaying gently in the breeze, but was perilously close to the telephone wires and I don't want to be responsible for an entire street without phone lines. 

I'm never quite sure what to do with my willow offcuts. These are about eight feet long, and it seems a shame to throw them away, but I've never learned how to process and weave the properly. Perhaps I need to put them on freecycle? 

What a lovely bunch you all are! I was delighted with all your comments on my last post - not because I like to think of you all being fearful scaredy-cats too, but because it's nice not to feel alone when you're feeling like a fearful scaredy-cat yourself. 

My sister's comment is worth repeating in case you missed it the first time... 

Sage advice - and I hope one day to be able to take it. 

In the meantime, I've been focusing on doing something that has been fairly high on my List Of Things I'm Scared Of for many years - learning to speak German. 

Now, I realise speaking German isn't inherently frightening - millions of people do it every single day without wibbling or quavering. I really do understand that nothing bad will happen to me if I open my mouth and speak some German phrases. 

It's not so much the learning German that's been the problem - more a fear of looking like an idiot if I pronounce something wrong. I've got friends from other countries who speak many languages and say this is just something you have to get over, and all are of the opinion that English people are particularly fearful of it on the whole (although of course there are many exceptions). 

I did a German GCSE, and a French one, so I obviously spoke some words in both languages at some point. But clearly I didn't learn them properly, because last week the only words of German I could speak were

(That's 'my name is Jenni, I am 15 years old' in case you don't speak German either). 

But spurred on by one friend moving to Austria, and another two to Berlin, and the thought that it might be nice to visit and say something more than that, I decided it was about time I got over myself. 

Somehow I found myself on the Fluent in 3 Months website, and reading through the blog archives encouraged me to think that I could at least learn a few words, and there was nothing to be scared of really. I told myself I'd only have to speak them in front of my friends, not in public, and that if I was still really scared, I didn't have to speak at all (they all speak English, so we wouldn't have been sitting in silence). 

But as it turns out, it's not actually that difficult to learn a few German phrases! I've been using the Anki app on my phone - it gives you flashcards of the 4000 most common German words, one at a time. If you don't know a word, it comes round again in a few minutes, and through simple repetition the words seem to be going into my head.  

I've also written out a few key phrases, and am trying to say them at every opportunity. Useful things - I need the toilet, I would like a shower, I'm tired, I'm hungry (gosh, I sound like a demanding toddler!)

The thing I'm most excited about is something I haven't started yet. On the Fluent in 3 Months website, they suggest that reading young adult fiction is a good way to get familiar with a language. So you have the same book in both English and German, and a dictionary, and you read a sentence at a time, noting things you don't know. 

Of course, I've chosen Harry Potter. I found an English copy of the first book in a charity shop at the weekend, ordered a German copy online, and have been watching out for the postman ever since.

Of course, my pronunciation is rubbish, and I get words mixed up all the time, but it's only been a week, so I'm hopeful that by the time I get round to visiting my friends I'll be able to have an entire proper conversation. 

Even if it is entirely about wizards.