The leaves are starting to change colour - right on schedule, just as Autumn begins. I wonder how long I will have to live in the northern hemisphere before I stop associating September with Spring?

Our back yard is going to look quite different when all the trees lose their leaves - instead of looking into a solid wall of green, I think we will be looking into someone's house. And, thinking about it, they'll be looking into ours. This is going to distress Stephen; I predict that he is going to want to keep the curtains closed all the time. He has a strong sense of privacy; it really annoys him if he comes home and the kitchen lights are on and the blinds are open, as this means that (gasp!) you can see into our kitchen from the street. Sometimes I feel like Bobby and I are the teenagers and he is the grumpy old man, all the lectures we get from him on various topics (appropriate clothing for parents; appropriate clothes-buying by parents for teenage sons; appropriate discipline for smaller sisters of teenage boys - should be harsher, apparently; appropriate tidiness of kitchen if people can't be bothered to shut the blinds ... I could go on).

I am about to go and collect application forms for a different teacher's assistant post. This one seems like it might be more enjoyable than the one I called about yesterday; it's working as an aide for a younger child instead of a teen. Term-time only, flexi-hours. Could be enjoyable I suppose, but I'd far rather be educating my own children than someone else's.