Very many thanks to all.....

 November 2026.....

It's the little things..... When I first launched my blog (and I still hate that word) I had no plan, and all I was doing was trying to find a way of showing some of my pictures to anyone (or everyone). This then became pictures with words, and developed into my Essays and Diversions, through some Tesserae about Italy. Today, 611 posts later, I have topped three million hits (3,019,310 at the time of writing, and 1,349 already today.....) Here are yesterday's stats:

Any way it is November, and today the Guardian's Weatherwatch (thank you, David Hambling) quoted a number of poets' words on the month.  Thomas Hood, wrote: No fruits, no flowers, no birds/November!  (No!, 1844).  Some ten years later James Clerk Maxwell described, the sad November time/when the leaf has left the lime.  John Clare saw the sun as seamless and pale and round.  Later Emily Dickinson thought November, the Norway of the year.....

Rather more positively, Robert Frost found beauty in The desolate, deserted trees/The faded earth, the heavy sky (My November Guest, 1913)

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

She walks the sodden pasture lane.

A poem that I always recall at this time of year, despite the differences of every repetition, is November by Ted Hughes, which begins: 

The month of the drowned dog. After long rain the land 

Was sodden as the bed of an ancient lake,

Treed with iron and bridles. 

Well, we haven't had that much rain, yet, but it still resounds:

In the sunk lane

The ditch - a seep silent all summer - 

Made brown foam with a big voice: that, and my boots

On the lane's scrubbed stones, in the gulleyed leaves,

Against the hill's hanging silence;

Mist silvering the droplets on bare thorns

Slower than the change of daylight.

In the last few days, recouping my thoughts and strength from recent travels, I have walked near my home, and caught glimpses of light and colour that interest me, whether natural forms:

Or traces of human development reflecting in the lagoon:

Pink-footed geese overhead:

A lone red kite scanning for worms:

Or the flocks of various sea birds and waders that love the low tides on the Wash:

Even allowing for the powerful windmills in the distance:

It's the little things..... November is, for me, especially, perhaps, this year, a time for thought, when the ebb and flow of the tide, the rise and fall of the sun and moon, remind me of the turning world and how our days are numbered.  But I even love the mud that whorls on the edges of the Wash, curling like a bed of snakes under the grey sky:

And I love the low shafts of sunlight that glimmer through the leaves in the woods, illuminating the passage between green and gold, between summer and winter, casting shadows on the gnarling bark of long-suffering trees:

And then there are the simple pleasures of human life, which, when all is said and done, are what society needs.  The welcoming pub, shining in the gloomy mists of evening: 

And the sea-side chalets, reminding us that there are warm and sunny days yet to come:

Even if they are, for the moment, firmly closed:

November can be a difficult month, and this year is not exceptional in that. But walking in and watching and hearing the world around us, is good for the soul, whatever the news, whatever the sadnesses that seem to be gathering about us. 

Let me share with you the beauties of the woods, and share my thoughts on travel and art and life, as I have done now for a good few years. There's no obligation to read what I write, no need to take any heed, but while I can I shall pursue this diverting path...... 

Thank you for joining me thus far at least.....

But of all the months when earth is greener

Not one has clean skies that are cleaner.

Clean and clear and sweet and cold,

They shine above the earth so old,

November

Edward Thomas

*****

[Dedicated to those who care......]

*****

Addendum: 13/11/26 @17.45