set piece for Autumn

This afternoon I decided to do as other bloggers have done and arrange a little set piece to show Autumn is here, or as the others call it Fall... That word Fall used to be an English term,but got crossed out after the Normans took over in the 11th century and we use the French word instead of our own real one... However it went across the seas and is used in Canada and America, so we can still relate.. I picked the pine cones and sprayed them gold and added the horse chestnut fruits and a few leaves and a small squash fruit. I tried to get a pumpkin, but they are not on sale over here yet.. at least not in my neck of the woods... I always used to like this time of the year, when the leaves came down and the trees became bare.. it was a time of getting new coats and new uniforms for school... a time of restarting all over for the coming school year. Going to school on the first day, finding your desk in the classroom, smelling the newness of the books, pads, and pencils are what remain in my memory. The first time you open the book to write what is on the board in front of the class, and put it into the pristine pages of the new book is a wonderful memory.

 I loved learning.. not much good at it really because I never pushed myself, but I held my own, never first, but not last either in the classroom.

 I was taught by nuns. They were very strict, but fair. I have read all sorts of horror stories of people educated by nuns, but our nuns were not nasty or sadistic, just good wholesome women who were there to teach us the subjects. It was a school that was established about thirty years before I joined it. I was nine, so that would have been in 1954. We had moved house to Hampton Middlesex, and the school was a bus ride away in the next village. Each morning we would walk down the road for about fifteen minutes and then wait on the side of the platform for the train to arrive. We went with slightly older girls who kept an eye on us, making sure we didn't get into any danger.

 After arriving at the station in the village of Sunbury on Thames, we would then walk together for another 15 to 20 minutes to the gates of the school then walk up the long drive. On the right of the drive there was a big field with at least one or more horses just chumping away at the grass. Never knew who owned them but we saw them every day.

 Walking up the drive would take another few minutes before we would arrive at the cloakroom to take off our outer garments and go to our classroom.