My very, very favourite month is almost upon us, and although September has a terribly special place in my heart, there is no doubt that the shift into any new season whether it be Autumn or Spring, has its own challenges in terms of necessary changes in mindset, self-care, domesticity, food, routine and ritual.
And so today I want to encourage you to set aside some time to really consider what the coming season will bring and what preparations are needed if you are to drift from season to season as seamlessly as can be.
There is much to think about you see: Autumn brings a gentle decline in the weather, that “back to school” feeling and a very definite need to re-think our daily menu plans. Winter has extreme weather conditions, an abundance of celebrations to consider and a deep-rooted need to hibernate while Spring delivers a breeze through windows we can finally open, a sudden need to clean up our entire lives and the gardening opportunities we mourn in Winter, until Summer arrives and routine is thrown out with the bathwater, salad is the only food we can truly contemplate and the children lose their minds during the long, hazy afternoons of the season.
Yes. Each season has her joys and her challenges and we do best when we are not taken by surprise by weather, appetite or celebration and have instead anticipated it all with carefully laid plans and gentle shifts in the routines and rituals of the seasons just gone by.
So might I suggest digging out your Brocantehome guides to each season and truly getting your heart and home in order? Not just reading them and admiring all those capable of making their instructions a reality, but from now on resolving to add a little seasonal festivity to each and every season and getting terribly purposeful about using the end of one season to prepare yourself for the next by putting the last season away, scrubbing your way out of the detritus of the months gone by, getting the budget set for the coming celebrations and special events in order, re-thinking family menu’s, organising your wardrobe and lining the bed in suitable cosy or fresh loveliness?
While I know we all do this in a fashion, organising uniform and storing the garden table and chairs each year, what I am suggesting today is that we become deeply mindful about ringing the changes each season brings so that we firm up the memories we are creating as the years go by and creating specific routines and rituals according to the season that we and those we love will come to anticipate.
Not all of it is terribly fun. Indeed much of what we have to do to in order to make the transition from one season to the next could be considered pedestrian and dull, but once the boring stuff of Winterising the house or conducting a Spring clean is done and dusted we can truly throw ourselves into marking the season by creating scent memories, baking after school treats and stocking up our read-me-next shelves with seasonal delights discovered in the
Think of it then as a Seasonal Swap and offer it the respect it deserves in your homemaking calendar by carving out time to do all that needs doing before the season is well and truly upon you, and your find yourself wading through puddles in your ballet slippers or tucking the kids up under an 18 Tog
Get the BrocanteHome Seasonal Swap Today!
Ready to get started on your own Seasonal Swap? I will be adding my suggested dates to the BrocanteHome Calendar over the next few days and if you are a Salon or VIP member you will find a ten page guide to conducting your own Seasonal Swap in the BrocanteHome LifeBook in your Library today. Not a VIP member yet? Click here to learn more…
The Brocante Round-Up! 
The Brocante Round-Up! 
The Autumn House
Autumn, my favourite season of all. But not quite yet please. I’m in no hurry to see Summer depart.
I’m not sure we have had a Summer have we??x