Last day of November 2012.

So, November, you are almost at the end of your time. Tomorrow beckons, December........

Another year slipping by....And now we have Christmas lights to brighten the gloom, and this weekend will light the Advent candles on the hearth.        

15.05 November 30th 2012

 We have had visitors from Dallas staying here during the past two weeks so no new blog posts. Then I wasn't well, resulting in the frustration of sitting up through several nights, as I could not breathe easily. Thankfully that is on the wane. What usually happens when I surface from the depths is a bout of activity, trying to catch up on the things which were left on hold. I can write my name in the dust on the wooden furniture! But it was sunny and bright, although extremely cold. So  no dusting took place.
I filled up the bird feeders in the garden, fat balls and nyjer nibbles amongst them. I was thrilled to see later that morning my redpolls returning to the nyjer feeder. They love the seed.

Common redpoll

As they were here last winter, and then left to go to pastures new, it made me glad to see them once more.              

15.06. Sun going down.

16.15 Sunset 

Goodbye November, as you quietly slip away. Time for tea.
  

Musings as November draws to it's close.

Frost. 11th November. Remembrance Sunday. 

Last week the tree surgeon came to prune the apple and maple, and trim the hedges and bushes. He comes once a year. The garden is now ready to sleep. 

Nevertheless in bright cold days, (which have been few and far between lately), I will be out there clearing the last of the leaves and cutting back the dead foliage of the annual plants, which die back into the soil until the return of the spring.           

The maple before pruning.

"The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The ghosts of her
Departed leaves."

 John Updike

Foggy morning November 15th

 "So dull and dark are the November days.

The lazy mist high up the evening curled,
And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;
The place we occupy seems all the world."-   John Clare, November

The last of the leaves in the mist.
15th November.

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it,
the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show." -   Andrew Wyeth

I don't know if that is what I prefer, although I like autumn colours. And walking through crisp fallen leaves as they crackle and scrunch underfoot.

Here the last two days we have had torrential rain and parts of the UK  have once more been flooded. This time last year we had a water shortage!! 

Unbelievable now.  

The winter of 2011 was extremely dry. 

And I heard  that we may expect snow by the end of the week..........

Well, that remains to be seen.

But there may be a brief return to bright cold days beforehand. 

It now goes dark in the evenings by 4.15pm. 

  Time for tea! 

November 2012

Sunrise 7.00am 6th November 2012

November has finally begun, and now the real evidence of the year dying on it's feet is seen in the trees and gradual decline of life in the garden border. This morning began with a beautiful sunrise, and the quiet stillness of a day which seems to hold it's breath. A kind of waiting.......then the everyday sounds gather pace.

I have planted wallflowers for their colour next spring. 

 Aside from the cheeping of a flock sparrows hidden in the shrubbery, there are now no beautiful fluid liquid songbirds, their voices silent till spring comes round once more. Only the robin, whose bright red breast cheers us in the winter months, sings out his shortened song. 

Last night, being 5th November, is known as Bonfire Night. A tradition whose history goes back to the time when Guy Fawkes was arrested on that date in 1605, with gunpowder in the cellars of The Houses of Parliament, in London. It became known as the "Gunpowder Plot". As people celebrated  the failure of the attempt on the life of King James the first, they lit bonfires and burnt effigies of popular hated figures. 

Children still make "Guys" to put on top of their bonfires. When we were young we used to make them and then take them round the neighbourhood, asking "Penny for the guy".                    

 We used to collect wood for weeks.
Here is a letter I included in  my blog of reflections on my childhood days.

http://capturinghistoryforthenextgeneration.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/blog-post.html

 So last night the dark night sky was punctuated by the brilliant starburst colours of skyrockets, and the sound of the bangs of fireworks. A cold frosty clear night where the stars were so bright in the heavens.  
Tiger took refuge in doors.
And as for me, I was at choir rehearsal, beginning, with the others, to sing through two Christmas  carols, which we will include in our concert in early December. Only 4 rehearsals to go!          

Tiger sitting one of his favourite "scratching posts".