November.

Well October my computer failed me.  Specifically a hard drive failed me, the one that boots the machine.  I could have bought repaired it but it was time for a new computer.

When I say 70 quid on ebay bought me a better computer, you can well understand it was time to upgrade the old one.  I don’t play Call of Duty Special Ops, all I need is enough computing power to get man to the moon.

Anyway, it set my priorities a little differently as a connected up a string of dubious legacy hard drives with the images of years gone by and worded memories.  Backups exist and had to be redone to keep them current.

The weather turned from cold to miserable, to cold and miserable and then November arrived and added wet and windy into the combination.

The last thing meaningful I did was go into the woods and collect chestnuts.  This was just before Nov 5th of course, a spare afternoon where the sun was peeking out from behind a cloud.  Later it rained, but by then I was outside.

Being out in rain is different to going out in rain and I was under the canopy by then, foraging about in the leaf litter.

The strong winds had brought down a happy crop of chestnuts and they had obliging leapt from their prickly cases as well.  Collecting was very easy indeed, a seasonal pleasure.

This all lead to collecting more than totally necessary, or lets say, more than I ended up capable of eating, preserving, cooking, generally making use of.  The remains still await useful introduction to the local wildlife.

Anyway I am back to my fitful best and hoping the North wind at least dries or freezes the mud which passes for countryside all around me so I can get out there without the need to scrape boots and wash dogs.