THE AUTUMN HOUSE

Alison May

¶

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Copyright © 2017 by Alison May

Interior design by Pronoun

Distribution by Pronoun

ISBN: 9781537851136

TABLE OF CONTENTS

- The Autumn House

- The Autumn House

- Welcome To The Autumn House

- Elements of The Autumn House

- Making Preparations For Autumn

- Making Memories

- Puttery Autumn Treats

- Decorative Touches For Autumn Warmth

- Autumntime Household Recipes

- Autumn Journal Prompts

- Autumn Reading List

- The Autumn House

- More by Alison May

The Autumn House

By Alison May

BrocanteHome.Net

THE AUTUMN HOUSE

~

The Autumn House

The Autumn House

Welcome To The Autumn House

Elements of The Autumn House

Making Preparations For Autumn

Making Memories

Puttery Autumn Treats

Decorative Touches For a Autumn Revival

Autumntime Household Recipes

Autumn Journal Prompts

Autumn Reading List

The Autumn House

The Autumn House by Alison May

www.BrocanteHome.net

© 2017 Alison May

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. and U.K. copyright law.

For permissions contact: brocantehome@gmail.com

THE AUTUMN HOUSE

~

“
Delicious Autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a

bird I would fly about seeking successive Autumns.
”

– George Elliot.

WELCOME TO THE AUTUMN HOUSE

~

Beautiful Autumn. Surely Nature’s most precious and rewarding gift to us all?

In Autumn we pick up the strings of rituals and routines lost to the lazy days of

Summer and experience a sense of rejuvenation inspired by that “back to school”

feeling we never quite lose even long after our days in education are over.

Autumn then is the season of hope. A season in which we are reminded that if Nature

herself can re-invent herself so spectacularly then we too are capable of of beautiful

things.

In The Autumn House I bring you all the inspiration you need to prepare a

season full of puttery treats. Treats that will remind you that Autumn is a season of

both celebration and preparation. That there is Harvest to be grateful for and the silly

joy of Halloween to enjoyed. That our homes themselves have to be re-invented to

prepare for cold weather and to create a place of sanctuary as glorious as that, that so

temporarily exists outside our front door...

This then is The Autumn House.

Love Alison.x

ELEMENTS OF THE AUTUMN HOUSE

~

Autumn is our very own little slice of heaven: a cornucopia of

spicy, joyful, sensual pleasure and quite the most ideal time to

start new projects and commit to a new, better way of life.

This then is hygge…

Crisp leaves and fields full of sunflowers. Apple pies and walks

through the forest. Knitting baskets, berries and pumpkin spice.

Gratitude and harvest. Oooh and soup…

Board games and blankets. Umbrellas and raincoats. Afternoon

candlelight and cinnamon frosted cupcakes. Leaf-kicking and

conkers. Lace trimmed thermals and cosy woolies. Satchels and

school shoes. Slippers and bowls full of shiny red apples.

Dressing gowns and low afternoon sun. Raking leaves and

snuggling up under eiderdowns. Cosy weekend getaways and

porches full of pumpkins. Vases splendid with Autumnal color

on tables topped with chenille.

Bedrooms lit by creamy lamps.

Gingerbread men and mugs full of chai. Jacket potatoes, roasted

vegetables and garlicky, chorizo stew.

Rooms scented with sandalwood. Baths taken in black pepper

and a bedside table groaning with new books. Flannel shirts and

denim aprons. Sheepskin rugs and Welsh blankets thrown over

sofas and windows lined with velvet. Patchouli massages in

candlelit bedrooms. Love and cosy laughter...

Ready for the loveliest of Autumns?

~

MAKING PREPARATIONS FOR AUTUMN

~

Pack away all Summer clothes in holiday suitcases and store in the loft or basement.

~

Store or cover garden furniture, play equipment and barbecues.

~

Clear out or turn over your compost heap and get it ready for all the plant

material collected during your seasonal garden clear out.

~

Buy a new journal to mark the season and prepare for the kind of deep soul

work Autumn can often inspire.

~

Replace Summer weight duvets with heavier tog replacements and re-hang

lined curtains.

~

Take a look at your soup pan and decide whether this is the year to replace it.

~

Inspect Winter coats and boots and decide whether they need replacing.

~

Conduct or book all necessary household maintenance checks. Have the

boiler and radiators serviced.

~

Start planning meals based on what is in the freezer and pantry so that it is

cleared for re-stocking with hibernation basics.

~

Make space in the house for Santa’s secret stash...

~

MAKING MEMORIES

~

“Autumn mornings: sunshine and crisp air, birds and

calmness, year’s end and day’s beginning.”

-

Terri Guillimets

When even the most persistent of Indian Summers have passed, Autumn mornings

remain a blessing. We open our curtains upon the crisp beauty of the leaves changing

and the air stiller than it seemed before.

For the first time in a while we sniff the air and sense cold and a little shiver of delight

runs through our veins. For there is no season more anticipated than Autumn: no

season which spells sensory pleasure in quite the same way.

Our mornings start in dressing gowns, a pot of coffee boiling on the stove and a busy

breakfast table already laid. For Autumn is quite the most purposeful of seasons and

there is no dilly-dallying to be tolerated. For a while our routines and rituals are born

again, a sense of purpose instilled by the notion of “back to school” that never quite

leaves us.

So children’s clothes are organised and lunches packed the night before. Diaries are

checked and compared between nibbles of toast dripping in home-made marmalade and

overnight oats lovingly prepared and topped with the last of the Summer’s berries. A

breakfast fit for Kings and Queens at a table lit by a solitary candle it becomes ritual to

blow out as the last person leaves the family table.

And then it is all go. The school run a gorgeous opportunity to enjoy the vibrant gifts

Mother Nature has bestowed on us overnight. Skeletal trees stark over fields full of

pumpkins and the roads carpeted in orange.

Back home we take our brooms and brush the leaves away from our front door. A ritual

that seems to epitomize all that homemaking is about - a promise to ourselves to keep

house in a way that tells all who pass it how very much we care.

Indoors we open the windows for a while to let each room breathe as we strip back the

beds to air and set diffusers burning with a stimulating Autumnal blend of ginger,

cinnamon and lime.

And then it is soup time. Taking all suitable ingredients from the fridge and stewing

them gently in a slow cooker full of homemade bone broth. A pot that will cook

continually throughout the season so there is always something warm and wholesome to

be had as the days grow shorter and the house comes into its own as a treasured place of

refuge from the kind of weather just beginning to betray us.

If all of Autumn is spent in the kitchen it should be considered no bad thing at all: for

this is the season for both cooking and baking. For always having a tin full of flapjacks in

the pantry for lunchboxes and feeling rather smug about knowing that that same pantry

is readily stocked with the canned bounty of the garden.

At lunchtime we sit down to a hearty Ploughman’s lunch, the very best of Autumn on a

plate: good cheese, warm seeded bread, one perfect apple and a spoonful of spicy tomato

chutney, and pen in hand we carry on making the plans that come so easily in this

heavenly season of renewal and celebration.

There is much to be planned: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not to mention

the arrival of Winter that all by itself requires the thought and attention of a homemaker

dedicated to both the practicalities of the season and all of the opportunities it offers for

hygge.

And so in Autumn we can throw our energy into making space in which to plan.

Carving out space on a desk decorated with all the lovely new stationery we are so often

inspired to shop for when that “back to school” feeling grabs us!

Creating and renewing household and Christmas planners so that we can get all our

festive ducks in a row and have one dedicated place in which to see the festivities of our

dreams come together.

Creating vision boards on which to pin our hopes for our one wild and precious life.

Making space on our bedside tables for the stacks of self-improving books we so very

often feel compelled to read in order to rejuvenate every last aspect of our bodies and

souls. Spending hours on end hopping around Pinterest creating boards full of

decorative dreams and truly believing that in Autumn we have both sufficient clarity and

more than enough power, emotional, financial or otherwise to make those dreams come

true.

Autumn afternoons then are for puttering. For hugging our homes and blowing off the

Summer dust each and every surface seems to be coated in. For bringing branches in

from the garden and arranging them in tall vases and for painting pumpkins in glorious

paisley pattern just because we can.

Autumn afternoons are for digging out flannel nighties and layering each bed in the

house with an extra blanket just in case. For mixing up a batch of spicy scented washing

up liquid and using up the last of the fabric conditioner scented with Summer. They are

for fashioning wreaths made of golden leaves and crocheting long scarves just right for

walks spent leaf-kicking in happy wellies.

This then is the season in which we treasure the time we get to enjoy our homes most.

When we collapse on the sofa just before we set out on the school run all over again and

sip at a cup of chai feeling pleased with what we have achieved and so very much at one

with a house that seems to be so glad to have us heart and soul back into its fold.

And then one by one the family drifts home, blown on a gentle wind like so many leaves

to arrive at the dinner table ready to enjoy a feast of warming curry and spicy naan. All

chatter about friends and work over a table laid in terracotta gingham.

Rituals are once again established. Who will wash the dishes on these the most

domestically ordinary of evenings and who will re-lay the table for tomorrow’s breakfast?

There are bedtime times to be renegotiated to reflect children growing up and the

energy and concentration being back at school demands.

And for ourselves there is the opportunity to reinvent our evenings. To break a screen

addiction or to practise a new set of soothing bedtime asanas. Yes. Autumn is our

opportunity to start again. To remind ourselves of our own authenticity and our purpose

in this life so as the nights draw in, we can hold up a mirror to our lives without the chaos

of Summer to distract us.

Perhaps later we will mull cider and hold hands over the first fire of the season, or

grab rugs and sit in the garden holding cups of cocoa and admiring the starry, starry

night. Maybe there will be fireworks lighting up the same sky, or we can pull on gloves

and write our names into the air.

You see Autumn is magic. Outside witches swoop by on brooms and indoors we can

reclaim our bathrooms and take the kind of hot, steamy baths made ethereal by a potent

combination of musky, warming oils we could not even contemplate earlier in hot

weather.

But it is our bedrooms that are the loveliest places to be. Not too frosty yet, nor sweltering with

heat, they are just right and as we have layered an extra blanket or two on to the bed we

can even leave the bedroom window open and enjoy the fresh air as we lie toasty warm

in sheets, wide awake and happy to read long into the small hours.

What bliss The Autumn House is.

~

PUTTERY AUTUMN TREATS

~

Infuse water with sliced apple and pears and add a cinnamon stick for a spicy taste of

Autumn.

~

Create a recipe box full of handwritten instructions for soups, chowders, bone broths and

cosy stews.

~

Visit a historical house or mansion and watch the staff making preparations for the

annual ritual of putting the house to bed.

~

Diffuse sweet orange, patchouli and ginger in the living room for the snuggliest of instant

Autumnal atmosphere.

~

Enjoy lunchtime salads of sliced red apples, pomegranate seeds and mixed leaves.

~

Serve little ones Autumn picnics on tartan blankets on the lawn.

~

Thread leaves onto fine cotton and string like bunting across bare windows.

~

Soak outdoor brooms and brushes in salt water to re-stiffen and extend their life.

~

Decorate pies with pastry leaves and tiny pastry berries.

~

Buy a set of bowls with handles to drink soup from in front of cosy afternoon movies.

~

Watch The Trouble With Harry and see New England in all its glorious Autumnal 1950′s

prime.

~

Seek out the loveliest Fair Isle knitting pattern and teach yourself the art of patience in

the pursuit of something lovely.

~

Fill terracotta pots full of branches laden with golden leaves.

~

Create straw covered little houses for hedgehogs in your garden by cutting a little

doorway i to a plastic box and placing it upside down on a leaf covered grassy area.

~

Toast pumpkin seeds and sprinkle them with vanilla for a nibbly taste of Autumn in a

mason jar.

~

Buy a different type of apple every time you go food shopping and ring the seasonal

changes for your elevenses.

~

Let an armful of peach roses dry and see how they turn into a blissfully pretty

representation of the season.

~

Make every Thursday night “Jacket Potato” night and enjoy them with a different filling

each and every week throughout Autumn.

~

Stipple acorns in gold leaf and display them in a glass bonbon dish.

~

Issue each member of the family with their own “cosy” blanket so there can be no

arguments should the evening turn a little chilly.

~

Pile a stash of the most Autumnal magazines in your collection onto the coffee table to

remind yourself of all the joys of the season.

~

Make some rosehip syrup and take a medicinal spoon daily to ward of colds. Or add it to

ginger tea for sweetness or even to gin for a cosy cocktail.

~

Start stock-piling horror movies for movie nights in October.

~

Stock up on sparklers and make Saturday evening sparkler night: dress the kids in coats

and gloves as soon as dark settles and let them draw their imagination into the sky before

each and every Saturday evening bedtime.

~

Plant a myriad of succulents in old copper saucepans for a touch of autumnal opulence

in the kitchen.

~

Twist a set of fairy lights through a wicker shopping basket full of fir cones and display

on hearth or porch.

~

Ring the changes this Halloween and start planning a Murder Mystery Dinner Party

~

Treat yourself to a fifties style boxed record player and spend Autumn evenings

dancing to the music of your youth.

~

Stand single stands of eucalyptus leaves into vintage medicine bottles for a stark but

pretty reminder of Nature’s gifts.

~

Create a Gratitude Blackboard and ask each member of the family to write something

that they are grateful for on to it.

~

Burn incense in your bedroom for smoky, sensual evenings.

~

Create a scrapbook of all your Summer memories.

~

Build a Sunday afternoon blanket fort and climb inside to read Autumn themed stories

to the kids.

~

Start a collection of vintage tea cozies.

~

DECORATIVE TOUCHES FOR AUTUMN WARMTH

~

Undress your vintage books and look for hard covers in muted shades of rust,

mustard, and green, then stack them in ribbon-tied bundles on your coffee table.

~

Mix in a collection of velvet pillows with your Summer bark-cloth to add instant

Autumnal opulence.

~

Sit pumpkins in iron urns on your porch and add a broom for a instant spook.

~

Cover the garden table in burlap and layer it with terracotta pots full of pumpkins,

dried twigs and fir cones for a visual nod to harvest.

~

Fill the mantelpiece with beeswax candles for there is nothing quite as warming as

the gentle yellow light they emit.

~

Keep a bowl full of shiny red apples on your kitchen table.

~

Add a little orange something to each and every surface in your living room. A

satsuma or a pumpkin. A bud vase or a lantern. A candle or a book. Invite Autumn in

and she will add instant cosy.

~

Replace doormats at each of the entrances to your house with thick new welcome

versions.

~

Hang patchwork quilts over bannisters for a splash of snuggly pattern.

~

Create fidget bowls full of acorns and horse chestnuts.

~

Wrap small bundles of twigs in raffia and stack them in a basket at your fireside...

even if you have a gas fire.

~

AUTUMNTIME HOUSEHOLD RECIPES

~

Cozy Autumn Freshener

Five drops of frankincense, three drops of fir balsam, four drops of Neroli, one cup

of distilled water and one cup of vodka.

Blend all ingredients in a pump-action bottle and shake. Spritz around the

living room in the late afternoon.

~

Spider Banishing Spray

One cup of white vinegar, ten drops of peppermint, eucalyptus or tea tree oil.

Blend together and shake. Spritz in to spider hidey holes and corners and

spiders who hate the smell of all these oils will hopefully not decide to

hibernate in your house...

~

Autumn Pillow Spray

One cup of distilled water and one cup of vodka.

+

6 drops of sweet orange blossom oil and three drops of lavender.

Spritz onto your sheets and pillows before bedtime and enjoy the sweetest of dreams.

~

AUTUMN JOURNAL PROMPTS

~

What is it about Autumn that makes us all anticipate it so gladly?

~

Describe your favorite childhood Halloween memory.

~

What would you like to achieve in the house this season?

~

List as many things as you can that remind you of Autumn…

~

Are there routines and rituals you have let fall by the wayside recently?

~

How does your house feel today?

~

Make a list of books you would like to read this season.

~

What kind you do to make your bedroom a place of sanctuary this Autumn?

~

In your dreams what does home look and feel like in Autumn?

~

Make a list of new tiny rituals you would like to incorporate into your

Autumn day.

~

AUTUMN READING LIST

~

Autumn is the perfect time to lose yourself completely in something engrossing on

the one hand and self-improving on the other. This then is my Autumn reading

List.

~

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

If ever there was a book more stark and enthralling than

Rebecca then I dare you to discover it.

Rebecca is so deeply imbued in time and place that it is

almost impossible to put down making it just right for

reading late into the night...

~

The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

Both fun, strange and curiously engaging, The Witches of

Eastwick is packed full of historically accurate information

about witches from days gone but brought up to modern

speed with humor and tragedy.

Though very different from the film this book is just right

for enjoying in the run up to Halloween..

~

The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball

If the Autumnal Harvest has had you thinking of going

back to the land and re-inventing yourself as a Farmers’

wife, then The Dirty Life will show you in lovely, inspiring

and engaging detail what the reality of such a romantic

notion really is.

~

Autumn by Susan Branch

All of Branch’s books are absolutely darling, but this one

is so seasonally evocative I simply couldn’t resist adding it

to this list and insisting that you read it.

~

Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

Sometimes there is no accurate way to describe a book to

someone else without insisting that they read it.

Suffice to say that this magical book is part fairy-tale, part

adult tragedy set in the woods of a German Forest.

~

Better Than Before by Gretchen Ruben

If Autumn has inspired you to re-think old habits and to

try to set in place habits you will be able to stick to, then

this is a might fine read to help you along the way.

Rubens tone is intimate and inspiring and you will put the

book down feeling like you have had the best kind of chat

with a really good friend.

~

Magical Housekeeping by Tessa Whitehurst

Should the bewitching atmosphere of October have you

yearning to sprinkle a little magic around the house then

Tessa Whitehurst’s lovely, comprehensive guide to keeping

house the white witch way is just right without feeling too

airy-fairy to be useful.

~

Soup of the Day by Ellen Brown

While keeping a pot of soup on the stove is possible

throughout the season merely by throwing leftovers in

to a pan, having a good soup recipe book in our

repertoire helps us to expand our horizon and see past

our very own culinary limitations.

~

THE AUTUMN HOUSE

~

“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, we

have had our Summer evenings, now for October eves! ”

—Humbert Wolfe.

Make the most of Autumn won’t you?

Love Alison.x

http://www.BrocanteHome.net

MORE BY ALISON MAY

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The Spring House

The Summer House

SEE MORE AT ALISON MAY’S AUTHOR PAGE