Time flies

Well it has been a lot longer than intended between posts.  Partially because weather has housebound me and what little time the weather has allowed has been consumed with working outside in it rather than recreational activity in it.

Working outside is a treat itself.  It pays less than the desk job but those are the breaks.  Fortunately the weather in England is rarely severe enough long enough that it becomes life threatening.  The really bad days you just stay indoors.  Usually all you get is unpleasant weather, there are exceptions of course but that has more to do with the circumstances in which you get caught out in the weather rather than the weather itself.

Anyway autumn is well and truly in full flow and a number of days of significant winds has meant the leaves on my garden tree have gone.

Losing the leaves is always a shame.  The tree has a hard time so exposed to the sea as it is.  Often they are wind burnt long before the real warmth of the year can save them in spring and they are “untimely ripped” from branches in autumn.

There is a positive side to it though, those leaves weigh a lot and the tree is now more prepared to stand against the winter winds it will face.

On the way to the local library (Ray Mears Northern Wilderness) I kicked my way through large piles of fallen oak leaves, damp underfoot from the rains they were slippy at the point they meet the pavement.  Sign of the times my mind wandered to the “health and safety” aspect of it all.

Within a hedge as a I walked along were the bright red berries and leather shiny prickling leaves of the holly bush.  Christmas reminder just after Halloween and the witches riding their broomsticks and directly before Bonfire Night.

Bonfire Night and the huge piles of “scrap” wood which will be burnt is quite the celebration.  Burning Guy Fawkes gives the game away as to whose side we are celebrating.

I am sitting here admiring a wooden spoon I have just been sanding down and feeding oil into, it is now  sitting on my desk.  It is nothing special, just a small wooden spoon but there is something magical about it because of its material.  It is a “human” material, you can carve your own spoon and it becomes a reminder of the landscape you have walked over.  You cannot do that with metal or plastic spoons, not in the same way at all.

Hopefully this weekend I will find time to get to my favourite wood and see the last of the autumn display and collect a few sweet chestnuts as I go.