The days are beautiful here where we live, with sparkly clear, crisp mornings giving way to bright warm afternoons. The maples are dressed in their best deep reds and golds, popping out against the lawn green of people’s front yards.

I’m lucky to be able to enjoy nature’s beauty in the course of my regular weekly round because we live in a very green part of suburbia and I’m not stuck in an office for 40 hours a week. It’s easy to be happy in these autumn days when creation is doing its best to show off just how stunning it can be.

I really enjoyed writing a column for The Catholic Weekly this week after a longish hiatus, and might have a stab at other today. There’s a beautiful story in there currently about a Sydney couple whose parish community rallied around them recently when their twins were born prematurely at just 26 weeks.

I’ve had a bit of a baby theme going on lately. A six-week-old girl was with her mum last night at a meeting my husband and I attended. Very cute – very distracting!

I also spent a bit of time on next month’s issue of the CathFamily e-magazine – the current one, on infertility, is here.

I made a recipe from the Delicious magazine (the cauliflower risotto), and adapted another (an oxtail coq-au-feu became a beef rump steak stew). Both were judged on a scale from good to barely acceptable by the different members of my family.

I had some nice time alone with my eldest daughter who was home from school with a bad cold for a couple of days. I didn’t get to Mass on any weekdays but kept up ok with the Divine Office.

And I got a gift from a reader! A beautiful calendar from the Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia charity organisation. I’ve admired Dr Catherine Hamlin, who co-founded the first fistula repair hospital and the charity with her husband Dr Reg Hamlin, every since I first read about them in the 80s or 90s. I’m pretty sure I’ve read her autobiography one time as well. Thank you Jenny.