November already!

Well, November is here! 

Everyone is talking about the approach of Christmas. 

It does not seem that long ago that we were watching the autumn unfold. As we turned our clocks back one hour at the beginning of the month, it really did signal the end of a glorious summer and autumn,and heralded the onset of winter.

The weather changes,and I often feel like hibernating! My days spent in the garden or outside curtailed when the sun begins to lower in the sky around 3.15pm.

 But it made me think about painting once more.So I got out my brushes and began...
thinking I would perhaps make a Christmas card from a photograph of the hills where I used to live in Rossendale, Lancashire. On a very wet, dripping, half light day, I took myself off to the loft room and settled into becoming completely absorbed in my task. Time did not matter......So although we mourn the loss of sunlit summer days, and a glorious autumn now on the wane, there is opportunity to create, and to sit and read a good book. Snuggled and warm. Sounds idyllic doesn't it!
I fully appreciate for others it is not so. For me it one of the pleasures of being in my mid 60's, where I value the time to "stand and stare....."

Cherry tree leaves glowing in the November
sunshine.  

            
Today is Remembrance Sunday in the United Kingdom.

I always watch the special service which takes place in London. My own father having been in the Army and gone across to France on D-Day  in WW2. He never talked about all he had seen, becoming quite emotional, and declaring that war is horrific and although he decided to fight for his country against the tide of Hitler's reign, it left a long and deep running scar.  Remembrance Sunday to him was sacred. All he wanted us to know was that we should not forget the sacrifice of so many lives. And his hope that there would never be another war.................. 

So I and countless other children growing up in the 1950's lived with rationing, but a land free of bombing raids and destruction. A childhood I personally now look back on with great affection. Our dad of course did return........

Now the war is against hidden enemies and carried out with all the latest technical equipment and arms available. A continuing struggle with extremism and man's inhumanity to man.
 So we take the time to remember and never forget.  
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24887778