NOVEMBER

There are still flowers in the garden and autumn colour and sparrows in the rain.

The third week in October used to be the peak of autumn tree colour - but no longer, now we are heading into the third week in November and there are still leaves on some of the trees. 

And there are evergreen plants - especially the fatsia with flowers! Even its fallen leaves are scupltural.

Cherries may be full of blossom in spring but they also have wonderful autumn colour so here we go before the leaves all fall off - 

 

Sam the gardener has been tidying the small streamlet that drains from the back field. In fact our stream through the garden is a composite of several.

There are also fungi in the garden. Something has had a nibble at the shaggy ink caps.

And the cherries are not the only tree colour - cercidiphyllum.

Then when the sun goes again the mist insinuates its fingers into the trees and a steady drizzle falls.

There are a few scattered flowers still with us and in the corner by a shed the lemon balm is thriving. When we get our first real frost, now overdue, it will suffer. The fuchsia, planted by the gate to remind us of the glorious shrubs at Glencolumbkille in Ireland, yet flowers.

Then as quickly as the sun came the rain returns followed by mist and fog.

Despite winter's delay and autumn's persistence some things penetrate the dreariness. The Euonymus that was moved has not given us quite the deep red we had before but stands out beneath the big sycamore.

NOVEMBER

No warmth,

days are cycling down;

no light,

nights are drawing in;

no song

but a storytelling of rooks;

no leaves

on the old skeletal ash;

no flowers

on sweet peas long dug out;

no mow

of the lank rain-sodden lawn;

no sun

but a shroud of stratus cloud;

no wonder

the prevalence of S.A.D.;

no time,

another year near done;

now,

no more,

November.

So, lest we forget, here is one more photograph of the great white willow in full autumn splendour (and R if you can spot her?)