My Autumn-mad friends have already begun welcoming the idea of the Ber months getting closer. We’re just about two weeks away from slipping into September, and I have to be truthful that although *usually* this is a welcome return to the normal, the routine, mundane and mostly harmless life I lead, September this year has more excitement in it than normal.

We’re celebrating (my husband and I) thirty years of marriage. Bloody miracle, if you ask me, and a testament to both of us being very reasonable, easy-going people, especially since for the last seven years we have lived and worked together for 22 hours a day most days a week. To celebrate, we’re having a proper City Break in Amsterdam come the end of September. I’m looking forward to it, although we’ve also got a short, quasi-business, weekend mid-September, as well as Yarndale in my diary as a solo excursion. September, it seems, will be a busy month after an admittedly quiet August.

That won’t stop me from aiming to enjoy my month of Small Things again. It seems I have, in one way or another, been recording my small details that make a difference since 2018 at least. I wrote about it in August 2021, also in 2018, when I must have been feeling nostalgic. I keep my Gratitude list in whichever planner I’m using all year round, but it’s always good to challenge oneself to a longer commitment. 30 days of simple pleasures, small things, tiny moments that make life better. I’ll hashtag them as always #smallthings and #septembersmallthings and share them here and on my Instagram, British Hygge Jem, which also links to my personal Facebook. It sounds weird, but I was always shy about letting my family and friends know I write a blog. Perhaps I thought it sounded pretentious, or perhaps I was just lacking confidence in myself. Whatever. The blog is here, and whoever reads it is welcome to join in, comment, create their own or do whatever they like.

I can’t promise a daily post… that usually only works if I sit down a month before and schedule them all within an inch of my life…. but there’ll be posts, books, food, family, nature, beer and wine. Everything that makes life worth living, in short. If I work out the new blog app on the phone, there may even be blogposts from Amsterdam. Here’s hoping.

And in the meantime, I’m counting the days til the Ber months. I’m enjoying the tail end of summer, but it feels a very daggly tail end at the moment: rain, grey skies, a breeze even when the sun shines. I wouldn’t mind a golden September, even a final blast of heat, but I have to be honest I am looking forward to the hygge days of Autumn, when shutting the door, lighting the candles and baking the puddings is back in order. I’m anticipating long Ber months of comfort:

• A warming candle to light every evening, a symbol of home and a stand in for the hearth that we, living in a centrally heated modern home, don’t have.
• The blue blanket of torture, still just over half-done and in need of some serious time spending on it. Currently I’m spending what would have been my crafting time learning Dutch on Duolingo, before I go at the end of September. I think, when I get back, I can probably drop down to just one lesson a day and devote the rest of my evening to getting the blanket done, dusted and on my bed for winter.
• Drinking chai on a never-ending loop. I try and find other teas but, honestly, why bother, when chai has everything I need? And my teapot for two, complete with cat cosy is just so adorable.
• Getting my long, fluffy yellow scarf out again. It’s so cosy and useful: on a warm autumn day I wear it alone, or perhaps over a light jacket and then in the depths of nippy cold I wind it around my head til all you can see are two green eyes and perhaps a spot of a smile.
• New books. I’ve shown you my summer reads a couple of weeks ago: I’ll do another post mid-September with the books I expect to see me through until Christmas.
• Seeing the leaves change, the animals go quieter, the flowers alter and slowly, slowly, winter slide in. The seasons change much quicker now than they ever used to when I was a girl so it pays to make the effort to notice.
• TV, audiobooks and more entertainment than ever! Strictly, of course, a perennial favourite, along with some new podcasts I’ve started listening to and some old TV shows I’m revisiting.

How about you? Are you anticipating cooler times, or would you hold on to the heat as long as possible if it were up to you? What pleasures from summer and autumn do you appreciate?

How to Hygge the British Way is my gift to the world. I don’t get paid for writing it, I’m not in it for the kudos, financial rewards, to become an influencer, work with brands or otherwise make any money from the blog. That’s why there are no ads, and any products I mention and recommend have either been gifted to me or bought by me with my everyday wages or donations from supporters. Every book I review has been bought and read by me, unless stated otherwise.

I do get a couple of pennies each time someone buys from the Amazon links on my page, as an Amazon Affiliate, but otherwise if you’d like to support me, I like to give something back in return. That’s why I write books. It always feels good if you get a book back in return for some money. You can find a full list of my books at my Author’s Page on Amazon, but especially recommended for this time of year are:

Cosy Happy Hygge: Setting up a rhythm to life and rituals to enjoy it to make for a more balanced life that handles waves and storms better. Lent is a season of rituals and resets. The book has small and easy ways to make your life flow with grace and happiness, which lead to more hygge.

Happier: Probably my most personal book, it’s the story of how I used hygge and the little things in life to help boost my happiness. I still go back and reread to remind myself what I need to do to be a happy human. And it’s always the little things.

How to Hygge Your Summer is my book about making the most of summertime. Hygge is so often seen as a winter pastime, and yet the principles of hygge (good food, good friends, time to be) are just as applicable to days when you can gather in a park or garden as when you gather round the fireplace. This book only scrapes the surface of what you can do, but hopefully sends you off with inspiration to make your own summer hygge.

I’m currently working on two book projects: I have a hankering to rewrite 50 Ways to Hygge the British Way, so it’s not available at the moment, but even dearer to my heart and my next stated aim is to finish and publish my next book, Simple Plus Cosy = Hygge. It will be about homemaking and how the home we create shapes the hygge we have. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of summer/autumn/winter.

If you’d like to support me, but don’t want to buy a book, I have a Paypal.Me account as Hygge Jem. Every little helps, so even a few pence goes towards the books, goods and courses I use and recommend on the site. I’m grateful for every little bit that brings me closer to my dream of full-time writing, and I know I couldn’t still be writing if it weren’t for the support of many readers and friends out there. Thank you all for every little bit of support, emotional, physical and financial, you give me.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it or save it so others can enjoy reading, thinking about and living hygge as well.

The photo between post and promotions is by Arno Smit on Unsplash. I wish I had a garden shed like this one! I chose it because I love the colours of the windowframes, the tantalisingly inviting open door and the comfy chair within. Perfect spot for a cup of tea and a good book. And the header today is the autumn wreath that will, once the Ber Months hit, take up residence on my front door.