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


  

A very special post box.........

Long ago in the mists of time, a young man of 18 was heading up to Cambridge University in the October of 1970.

He had not long been going out with a young lady of a mere 22! 

That young lady was of course myself. 

In those days neither of our parents had a telephone, nor had we internet, mobile phones or any other devices which gave us instant access to communicate with each other.
This meant we wrote to each other, mostly daily, for three years, when Stephen was at Churchill  college.
These letters are now numbered, dated, and kept in a box. Very special memories.
      This blog has been prompted by our friend's daughter going up to Cambridge University this past week.
She has instant access to all her friends and her family, via Facebook and mobile, amongst other things. I sometimes wonder if letters will become obsolete, notwithstanding the actual price of a stamp!

Stephen at the post box in 1971

        However, Stephen and I survived his first term apart for 8 weeks. I was a young primary school teacher living at home, which was in Rossendale, Lancashire, many miles, or so it seemed then, from each other.
The letters dropping on to the mat each day were anticipated with a sense of warmth.
    We got engaged on Christmas Eve 1970, and when he went back to University in January 1971 there was a 7 week postal strike. It was so hard. We relied on a 3 minute phone call, me from a phone box in the next avenue to our road, and he having to book or wait his turn in halls.
  Yet we still wrote to each other most every day, and at the end of the strike, we each posted a big fat packet of letters!        
So as you can see, should you be reading this blog, the post box in the photo is very significant. It is Just down the road from Churchill College in Madingley Road, and I wonder if it is still there!

Last day of September in the garden... First day of October, Baddesley Clinton, National Trust gardens

"Birthday Boy" rose.
Bought for my dad on his 90th birthday.
Now in our border. 

Dahlia border Baddesley Clinton

Victorian vegetable garden. Baddesley Clinton

Sunday Morning...........towards October

The house is quiet  and Tiger has come in from his nocturnal wanderings, wherever he happens to go, and has gone into the loft to curl up on a chair and sleep. Hubby is still asleep. 

I have had a cuppa, and decided to address my neglected blog musings. We did have, still have, an extension of the summer weather. A few blips this past month here and there,but not many. My friend complaining that her garden is dry. Me thinking the other day, I need to water the border plants. I shall redeem them today!    

Yes, there was more tea in the pot!  

Colour is everywhere outside the window. The roses are still blooming, and I dead headed most of them before we went on holiday once more at the beginning of the month. We returned after a couple of weeks to a bright display and more sunflowers smiling at us. Even though I planted the seeds late after the awful long bitter winter, the warmth and sunshine of the last few months has encouraged them to grow late in the season.    

Today I will spend in the garden. I need the solace sometimes. It is a place where I go when I withdraw for a time. I miss my lovely oldest son and that will never change. September containing the anniversary of his death, seven years ago this year. I have so enjoyed the summer, and know it one he would've loved. Only yesterday was one of those times when the pain of loss returned unexpectedly. Sparing the details here.....I write another blog all about Matthew, a place where I can express my thoughts in a far more personal way. This blog is not for that. More of an on-line journey through the year, encapsulating random ideas and the passing of the seasons. I enjoy looking back once I reach December.
                 Hard to imagine now just how much we all longed for last winter to end.            

"Simply the Best" rose. Aptly named

"Ingrid Bergman" flowering again

Autumn sunshine on "Sir Cliff Richard"

Tiger relaxing once more, having finally forgiven me
 for putting him into the cattery when we went to France     

                                              October beckons.........

Eve of September.....

Mulllion Cove. Cornwall. June 2013  

The most Southerly thatched cottage in the UK

Our family on Mullion cliffs

Cream tea in Grange in Borrowdale, Lake District,
Cumbria. UK July 2013  

Lake Side. Keswick. Derwentwater. Lake District
July 2013 27C!!  

Garden in late June

I have really enjoyed this summer!

It has been one we will savour for a long time and certainly in the winter months ahead.

The last summer we had which was warm, hot even, and sunny, was 2006.

Although this one was slow to unfold, it gradually spread out in long warm days, blue skies, and dreams of beach holidays at home in this country became a reality, not a distant dream.

   There was rain, yes, but not the prolonged deluges of previous years.

I have not worn a coat, only needing a cardigan if the mornings and evenings became cooler. 

At times I have needed an umbrella, but that was good as it meant I did not have to water the garden!

June saw us and our son and family, once again in our favourite place on the Lizard in Cornwall. 

After 20 years of going to the same place, we all booked again for 2014!

July saw us celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, with a short break in the Lake District, near Keswick. It was scorching hot, extremely unusual for the Lakes! The temperatures each day were 27-28C  and the lake shimmered in the heat. 

   

We were outdoors morning till evening, after breakfast. Our lovely hotel was in a quiet secluded spot on the lake shore, hidden from the nearby road. 

40 years ago we spent our honeymoon in Keswick and decided to take a trip down memory lane!

 It was a special time, remembering all those years.

I had been to Nyons in France in mid June, with my friend Cecilia, to our usual language school.But for once I decided not to do the intensive week's course and whilst Cecilia slaved away, I was able to be out and about, in the old place, being back at the house for meals and the trips out to places of interest arranged by our hosts, who are now like old friends.

The photos of that trip are on my flickr site so I've posted the link below, should you, (if anyone is reading this!) care to take a peek. 

     I will stop here. It is September 1st tomorrow, and I did not want to let the summer slip past without writing a blog!! 

I have been enjoying being outdoors so much, writing has been non-existant!     

Maybe I won't leave it so long this time..........that is unless we have an Indian summer!       

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lancs-lass/sets/72157634364002892/with/9152076391/

Snapshots of April and May. 2013.

Deep crimson rhododendron blooms.

Magnolia stellata in our garden

A watchful cat in the school grounds 

Canal boats. King Edwards Wharf. Birmingham.

A morning walk......Monday 20th May. 2013

It was such a lovely May morning that I left the housework to itself, (not difficult in my case!) and took myself out for a walk. There is nothing quite like the scent and sound of May in full bloom. The birds are now in full throated song.The new leaves so fresh, filling the trees with all the variations of green that could possibly be painted.

The smell of May was heady. Newly cut grass verges in the damp air. The day had begun with a slight mistiness and humidity, which enhanced the scent of the bluebells as I passed by, and highlighted the sense of the overwhelming reappearance of flowers, blossom, leaves, responding to the sap rise and their own rebirth. 

And how is it, that this time with the season being so late, everything seems so much more vibrant, with late daffodils mixed in with bluebells and apple blossom, tulips and lilac blooms. 

Nature has a way of surprising us all. 

                        

Bluebells. 

A glorious bank of azaleas and rhododendrons

Tiger cat waiting for his lunch.

Apple blossom now out in our garden