New paintings and regular art updates.
Our fig tree that grows alongside the house is well sheltered and has got rather tall this year. The leaves are really big and are just starting to fall off. The one on the ground still looks healthy and green. The laurel bush is towering over everything and really needs cutting back but we don’t have the skills or the strength to do it.
So all in all the garden is thriving. We need to maintain it bit it’s our wild haven. I will maybe post more photos as the year turns.
It’s a tad warm today. Britain is a maritime nation, an island, with weather coming from all directions. So we have all sorts of weather to contend with. You can have a whole years weather in a day. Sun, rain, wind, hail, snow!
Today, its 22.8°C inside and 29.6°C outside and rising.
Then comes the arguments. My hubby opens the windows to get some breeze. I close them and shut the curtains… I think it keeps the hot air out? Its getting warm, and it’s almost autumn. The last time it was this hot was in July, August was a damp, cool and unsettled month.
I do think it’s strange how the weather changes almost always at the end of the month or the start of the next. Is it just in the UK? I know in some countries they don’t have rain for years and others face monsoons. I guess we are lucky?
I keep coming back to this tree as it spreads its branches over the view from Penkhull. I have watched it in leaf, with dying leaves, bare and now in bud. It makes me realise how fast a year can pass. The same with gardening, the seasons and plants come and go. And I’m a year older and no wiser….
Walking every day for a couple of weeks seems to have put me back in touch with the seasons. I’ve been frozen for the last few days, the sun has been shining brightly but the wind has been blowing from the East. It actually made it good to wear a mask, it helped keep my face warm. Seeing the sun setting slightly later each day, when it gets past 5pm I really feel like we are heading back to Spring. Seeing a few snowdrops and crocuses about now. Soon it will be the turn of Daffodils. Hooray!
Something cold
Something blue
Strong winds
Cold showers
Gale force time
Leaves off the trees
Strewn on the ground
Kicking them round.
Run through the mounds
Of yellow and gold
Reds and russets
Spiralling down.
Crisp and clear
Frost on the way,
Sparkling blue skies
Or raining all day.
Overcast with clouds
Grey and misty
Fungi are found
Surrounded by mystery.
Soon will be winter
End of bright colour
Till spring
Comes again
In showers and bluster.
The roses have faded and are gone. Only memories stay with you. Perfume, thorns.
The autumn and fungi are here, rosehips are swelling, elderberries feed the birds. Clouds are gathering, nights are earlier, mornings later. Time for spooky evenings, pumpkins and spiders. Black cats and rats. Mists descend, people try and raise their spirits with bonfires and fireworks, lighting up the sky with flashes and whizzes. Now few entertainments will be allowed. Life continues, but a grey boredom faces us. Keep away, keep away, keep away, the bird Sings. Out of the darkness people laugh, hide, drink, get up to high jinks. Fools for a day or the season. As the year creeps on festivals are cancelled, subscriptions to TV channels you never watched before increase. Firms named after rain forests cash in. Work continues but strangely. And snacks to comfort us are eaten. Winter arrives in cold airs and frosts, the seasons turn. Will spring and rose buds ever return or will black spot spoil the days?
In the northern hemisphere at least. We’ve hit the equinox, when the day and night lengths are the same. Cold, arrives, now. Unless we get some late summer heat. There’s been hailstorm in the North East of England and heavy rain in Scotland. Across the Northern hemisphere there have been hurricanes in North America and Typhoons in Asia.
The other side of the world is experiencing Spring. The South is getting warmer as the Earth starts to tip its south Pole towards the sun. The tilt of the Earth means that we have seasons. If the world was at 90° day and night would be equal across the whole world. 12 hours of light, 12 hours of dark. No glorious late evenings in summer or long dark nights in winter. What an interesting world we live on.
And it’s not flat!
The leaves will turn soon, green turning to golds and oranges, the wind blowing through the branches, stripping them until they are bare. Cold and frosty mornings crisping the leaf litter. So that eventually the skeletons of their veins are exposed. Children making prints from the leaves, painting them and pressing them down onto paper. Making them into patterns. Making them into wreaths and table decorations. Using gold and bronze spray paint to cover them. Adding a bit of Holly or Ivy and a red candle for Christmas cheer.
After autumn, Winter chills, usually wet now instead of snow. The branches bare until Spring arrives. Then buds, expanding into leaves again. Back to Summer, heat, flowers, scents, shimmering haze. Life.
It’s been threatening rain all morning. It was raining earlier, the abandoned cat we look after appeared bedraggled at the back door so he came in for a pouch of cat food before going off again. He’s definitely an outside cat.
We were expecting rain all day. My hubby was going for a walk but that has been cancelled. So he’s in the shed making cozy places for the hedgehogs and the cat to sleep in.
Rain. One year, many years ago, we were suffering weeks of rain. I told someone that an ark was being built on the top of the hill. They believed me! This country (UK) has so many influences from the North, South, East and West that we can sometimes get all types of weather in one day. The rain is one thing, but we sometimes even get (very small) tornados. Also hail storms, water spouts, gale, storm and hurricane force winds. High temperatures (rarely) but highest last year it was 38°C. Low temperatures, probably worst in Scotland around minus 20°C.
So yes, rain, some of the UK is very wet, certain villages like Seathwaite in the Lake District get some of the highest rainfall. Some of it is extremely dry. The South East of England around London frequently gets less water from rain than it requires so water companies are allowed to extract water for public use from rivers and aquafers.
On the whole I like rain. Except for late one night when we came out of a club and missed the last bus home. We had a five mile walk in the heavy rain. The water ran down my ‘showerproof’ coat. My trousers got soaked, and then the rain started getting in through the coat seams. Oh joy! Even my shoes were sodden… Memories.
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Various views of our spring Garden, top view is flowers, including Daffodils, Muscari Hyacinths, Primroses, Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra), Helibores, Pulmonaria, and Celandine. The bottom photo shows the Pear tree propped up with some wood, the weight of the pears pulled it over last year, Cyclamen in a pot, the path to the summerhouse, with some railway track and our back yard, waiting to be tidied up.
I did a bit of pruning today. I’ve had so little exercise these last few weeks that I felt very wobbly when I’d finished.
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Mallaband-Brown