Sunday 26th October - 'time waits for no man'

Except perhaps today, when the clocks go back and we have an hour to catch up...

I've read a couple of amusing blogpost, here (cyber-coenobites) and here (jabblog, hope you don't mind ...)

Both posts are along the same kind of musings I was indulging in... what happens during that hour? If, like me, you enjoy fantasy fiction especially stories involving parallel worlds, then this non-hour is full of potential. (I love the 'Rivers of London' series by Ben Aaronovitch)

None of the above is what I had in mind to post today!

This morning, when I did get up, I stood by the bedroom window and looked out to see a clear pale sky, and a completely still, calm day. Nothing appeared to be moving. 

As I waited there I began to notice the birds; gulls, from the sea or more likely from the landfill site a few miles away, and small groups of fluttering starlings flying apparently aimlessly hither and thither. A pigeon waddling around in the middle of the road. A few puffs of smoke from a fire or central heating boiler. A thin white streak way up high from a plane travelling west... 

In spite of all this activity it was still very peaceful, quiet, calm out there. A scene to store along with the others in my mental photo album;

from the Poetry by Heart website;

by Roger Robinson. I first encountered it in 'More Poems on the Underground, and rediscovered it today - in one of my Commonplace Books!

Saturday 25th October - pages from my Commonplace Book

 Yesterday was busy (apart from arranging things on the shelves of my new little table). Today was... not busy... so here are some pages from.my last Commonplace Book instead of regaling you with the entirely uninteresting details of the day.

I'd noticed a lot of '3 ingredient cake' recipes or ssimilar, and when I looked, they all seemed to involve 'bisquick' or 'a box of white cake mix'... ingredients that I had no knowledge or experience of. So I researched... 

The next photo is something shared by a good friend. I don't know the original source.

I'm slowly reading 'Meditations for Mortals' by Oliver Burkeman;

This was a card from my son from a few years ago. Inside, the cat says 'is there anything you need pushed off a table or counter top you?'

Random quotes;

Random recipe (I haven't tried it) and a quote from a stitching blog I rate highly 

I've been writing in Commonplace Books off and on for a number of years, collecting all sorts scraps, and sometimes adding my own thoughts and opinions. I find it fascinating going through the old ones as it brings back memories of what I was reading and doing at the time.

Friday 24th October - my new table

 I could pretend that ordering a little flat-pack table was solely so that BB, who likes assembling kits like booknooks

and complex wooden models

(this is a u-gears kit, when you turn the big wheel a secret compartment is revealed)

was an act of kindness, giving him a larger scale kit to 'play' with. I'm afraid it was nothing of the sort; I've been turning over ideas to help resolve the chaos occupying half the settee where I usually sit. BB made short work of putting the pieces together, and now I have a neat little table beside the settee with three shelves underneath;

I've still got a small stack of books and bits at the end of the settee but it's nothing like as big as it was.

Not only that, but lookee lookee;

The top swivels! I can bring my sewing basket / tea tray / whatever I like over to me, within reach.

I think this will be a solution...

Thursday 23rd October - painting out the doldrums

 This morning I was wandering around the house from one room to another, not settling to anything, not doing anything. Rather like a child, (or the cat?) I kept looking out of the front windows and then the back windows but the weather was the same at both sides of the house. Cold, grey, damp, and did I say cold? It's worth saying twice. English cold. Seeping cold. I stuck my nose outside and withdrew it again.

The last few leaves on my little witch hazel tree hung like limp dirty rags.

I had twenty minutes before I was due to teach a piano lesson. 

There was a jar of cleanish, well, only slightly murky, water on my craft table, so I sat down and splodged neat  autumn colours onto a page in an open notebook. Weirdly, I could feel my mood lifting as the colours merged and changed where they met...

The piano lesson,  as always with this lady, was fun! We both prefer to learn through 'play' rather than slog. Half term next week, and like all teaching staff everywhere, she's done. It's been a tricky and difficult half and, as is so often the case, the break has arrived not a day too soon. So we played!

After lunch I added the leaves;

That's worked out OK. I might add some more leaves and squiggles tomorrow. 

(The day ran away with me yesterday, hence no post)

Tuesday 21st October - Cooler weather, warmer hearts

 Goodness, but it gets dark early these days! And my oh my, but isn't the sun slow to rise in the mornings!

I used to become steadily more apprehensive of the cold, and the gloom, and coming dreariness, and driechness of the winter months. Last year was different. How?

Here are my anti-gloom strategies;

Warmth;

I have warm socks, and proper slippers, so that my feet and ankles stay warm.

I keep a couple of cheerful rugs close at hand on the back of the settee, ready to wrap myself up in

 

I've chosen some really cheerful wool to knit and crochet with - watching the next colour slip through my fingers and up onto the hook or needles is a tiny little pleasure 

 

Still on the subject of wrapping up warm; I bought winter weight thermal lined hiking trousers! I might look like a michelin man but I don't care!

That's the outer warmth (did I mention my lovely winter pjs? Brushed cotton from Land's End?) 

For inner warmth;

I try and notice things here and there and around and about, maybe a tree, a flower, or, if I get the opportunity, indulging in a favourite activity of people-watching; 

For example; overheard on a chilly day when having lunch outside at a NT gardens;

Older Man (like our age, oh dear!) carrying a tray out from the cafe service area; 'I couldn't stay there. Too hot. Far too hot. Had to leave.'

Wife, soothingly 'That's alright dear, let's sit here'.

He puts the tray down and rips off his jacket. She reaches for her bulky winter weatherproof coat and bundles herself up into it. They settle down companionably to have bread and soup and hot drinks; he's in shirtsleeves, she's cocooned in jacket, scarves, topped off by woolly hat.

Well, I found that little scene amusing...

Talking of trees and flowers; a small bunch or pot of flowers where I can see it at odd times of the day, like the sweet peas I mentioned yesterday, or the last few roses I can see through the window, are a great pick-me-up. When there's nothing left in the garden, (there's always something left in the garden!) I'll get some potted bulbs from a shop and enjoy those instead.

Reading; it was one of the blogs written by Sue (but which blog? which Sue?) that put me on to the idea of a seasonal bookshelf. I never know whether to pick books that will bring Summer back - or books that will reflect Autumn and Winter. My current book is set in the midst of a Canadian winter - now that's WINTER! I've read a couple of murder mysteries set in Iceland - they know about cold, and about staying warm! 

Monday 20th October - flowers

I cleared out a small vase this morning; it contained a few sprigs of lavender and a couple of chrysanthemums, the little flowers that get snipped from the stems when filling a tall vase. Two of the lavender sprigs had developed roots! So they needed to be potted right away. 

What to replace them with?

But what could I find to put in their place? Some bits of rosemary and a couple of sweet peas. My sweet peas only started flowering at the beginning of October. I'd given up on them. I love having a small vase of flowers on the kitchen windowsill. I wonder if the rosemary will root?

While I was out in the garden, during a break in all the rain today, I took a photograph of the fatsia flowers. The buds are opening;

creating creamy white pom-poms. It looks quite spectacular when each little stalk expands to make another pom-pom. I'll keep you posted. 

You might be able to make out the little metal birds fixed to the top of the fence. They are so sweet!