Prologue to Fall 2025: Homecoming, Family Routines, and God’s Season of Gathering

Summer stretched long this year—two months beneath the Sri Lankan sun, a drift along the French Riviera, days wrapped in salt and sea. It feels almost unreal now, boarding the plane back to England, where the sky is heavier, the light already dimming earlier each evening.

Home waits for us here. Our husky—our bear boy—ready to be gathered back into the family. The children’s voices filling the lane again, their shoes scattering leaves that have only just begun to fall. The air is damp, the soil rich with that unmistakable smell of rain and roots, and suddenly we are not travelers anymore—we are keepers of a home again.

Fall always asks this of me: to turn inward, to rotate wardrobes, to ready the house for warmth, to bring the soups back to the table where we sit close, bowls steaming between us. It demands quieter routines, but not without beauty. The kind of beauty that is earned after a season of running free. Found in wool blankets pulled from storage and freshly cleaned, in boots lined at the door, in the children leaning against me as we walk under the trees, listening to the sound of rain falling while moving through yoga, and in my husband leaning close, tracing shapes with the kids on the fogged glass.

I love the way Fall brings peace with it. Not a stillness that erases, but one that gathers. The season teaches me that we can go far, we can stretch wide, but we are always called back to what matters most: the home, the family, the daily bread. This is the season of gathering what God has given and holding it close.

And so, here we are, at the opening of Fall. Ready for soups and stews, for fires and prayers, for layers, rain coats and walks down the lane. Ready for what this season has to teach us once again.

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