November 4th, 2016

After my pitiful whinging

about melancholy, dismal November

my youngest son sent me this photo,

retrieved from a friend's Facebook..........

the path along the Similkameen River

In November

so how can I continue to be despondent about this month

that has many sad remembrances

but is still beautiful

and still filled with lovely and meaningful things....

I just took a pretty casement-lace silk scarf off the loom

woven with precious balls of fragile silk

I have been saving for years,

and now the loom is empty and looking for the next warp

to dress its lovely limbs!!

Our eldest son and daughter-in-law came to

have dinner with me

and brought flowers

and fridge art...

Whilst making room for this intricate adult colouring

I took a few quips and quotes off the fridge, and amongst them

a little blue pencilled observation

from Fredelle E. Maynard's book,

The Tree of Life (p245)

"My parents have died, the love of my youth has died.

I am at the top of the tree, beyond the fruiting branches.

But I am still here, looking skyward...."

It was attached to an aged and yellow sheet, defining Maturity.

Maturity is the growing awareness that you are neither wonderful nor hopeless.

It has been said to be making of place between what is and what might be.

It isn't a destination.

It is a road.

It is the moment when you wake up after some grief or staggering blow

and think, I'm going to live after all.

It is the moment when you find out something you have long believed in

isn't so, and parting with the old conviction

find that you are still you.

The moment when you discover somebody can do your job as well as you can,

and go on doing it anyway.

The moment you do the thing you've always been afraid of.

The moment you realize that you are forever alone, but so is everyone else,

and so in a way you are more together than ever.

And a hundred other moments when you find who you are.

It is letting life happen in its own good order

and making the most of what there is.

I was glad to read this again...how many times have I opened the fridge door

and it has been so inconspicuous to me,

but now I read it once again, as I first did when I found it

and put it there.

Life is discovery and re-discovery, and all of it good.

Q for Quartet

ABC Wednesday
November 2nd, 2016
The letter is Q for QUARTET

Here is a Visual delight, as well as an Audio pleasure 

from Carmen, Habanero

for more Qs click here at ABC Wednesday

with thanks to Roger, Denise and Leslie.

Alfred East

Even if something is left undone

everyone must take time to sit still and

watch the leaves turn.

Elizabeth Lawrence

The lane where Bruce and I go walking these days is awash with scarlet and yellow leaves,

 -  and walnuts fallen from the great, old walnut trees the neighbour cherishes,  

(the fruit of which I gather and prepare to glaze for Christmas...)

The leaves fall patiently.

Nothing remembers or grieves.

The river takes to the sea 

the yellow drift of leaves...

Sara Teasdale

In the orchards, and the hills, and along the river banks

there is nothing but the golden glow of Autumn

to carry us forward into the sombre gloom 

of November.

I hate to say that, but November is not my favourite month.

So much sadness, so much dreariness.

so much heartache.

But between now and the first of November we have that delightful

(and overly commercialized) celebration of All Hallow's Eve.

I have my candy and my witches hat all ready, but who knows

how many little goblins will visit down the street.

I was going to make carmelized popcorn balls

but my daughter told me they would just be thrown away

when the little goblins got them home.

There is such a fear among parents of needles and razor blades 

and sometimes I wonder what

that fear is doing to us as a society....

Will we eventually lose our confidence and our sense of derring-do

and adventure

and if we do will it be a result of the media and too much reliance on government????

Oh dear, time to put fear away and go and look at glorious October..

November will come soon enough.

George Eliot says..."Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it,

and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking

the successive autumns."