Tuesday, November 01, 2016

November again

This November marks my tenth anniversary of blogging. Still here. And in keeping with tradition, I'm going to post every day of November, just because I can. Toning up the blogging muscles, carrying the camera, getting back into the habit of recording the mundane quotidian etc, nothing very ambitious except to post every day.

We have been having an October as they always should be, and frequently are, these Indian summers surprise almost with the regularity of spring; chill, thin, misty mornings blooming and filling out into golden, luminous afternoons. I have a dog again who runs with joy in sunlit fields and gets me out again to appreciate these days afresh. Her paraphernalia of lead and clicker and treats take up space and hands, so carrying the camera, even when I think to, is more of an awkward effort, and I'm missing my sleeveless walking vests with their multiple pockets, which along with winter coats and the sofa throws and cushions and several carpets and quite a few other things are still at the dry cleaners post-fire, but when the decorators have finished, which shouldn't be long, we'll get them back. 
















This is our twentieth year of living here, so I've been blogging for more than half of that. Despite their beauty, these open, airy, largely empty, agrarian uplands, maize and manure and tractors and shotguns three times a week through the autumn and much of the winter, are losing their appeal for me. I find I want, rather a lot, to be among riverside villages and ports and apple orchards. It may yet happen.

Back tomorrow.



8 comments:

Zhoen said...

Time to live by the river.

I'd forgotten about November daily posts, thanks for the reminder.

marly youmans said...

Ratty and Mole need to go boating....

Catalyst said...

Can't wait to see what you and Tom eventually wind up with. Love the misty pictures.

the polish chick said...

oh lucy, it's so beautiful! but i completely understand the draw to be elsewhere, no matter the beauty.

Roderick Robinson said...

Ah, to occupy an agrarian upland, slowly but with gravitas like a bison. I don't see bisons as potential candidates for my newly formed Nasty Club; they were after all out-nastied by Buffalo Bill and those who remained launched a public enquiry; the report is due out any decade soon.

I've just invited Rouchswalwe to join my Nasty Club but with misgivings, she may be too nice. I'm also worried about protocol; surely an invitation undermines the principles of a Nasty Club; one should start with a grievous insult. I thought your response was worthy of the Medicis.

I misread your post first time round - thought you were loading your pockets with plumbus, the metal, and bethought myself of Virginia Woolf. Worried again. In fact I'm beginning to wonder whether I have the moral fibre to turn the Nasty Club into a going concern. I arrive on the threshold of Box Elder and my resolve melts away, I'm full of mellow fruitfulness - a phrase I previously envisaged acting as code for a hangover.

Avus said...

Enjoyed the Autumn images, Lucy. It's my favourite season.

Churchill was always on about "the broad and sunlit uplands" and I rather like them too - particularly the feminine curves of chalk downlands. But I get the feeling that you two may be upping sticks for other views..............

Lucy said...

Thanks all.

Z - yes, I even know which river. I think you got me onto November daily blogging in the very early days.

Marly - oh yes!

Cat - it can't be straight away, but we really don't want to wait too long, we're ready for the change.

PC - it is lovely in many ways, and we won't go too far.

Robbie - glad to hear I have such an emollient effect on you, though I feel there is a perversity in your being gratifyingly insulted by my telling you you weren't really nasty enough.

Avus - when living in the Sussex downs, and having grown up in the Chiltern chalk lands, I do love a chalk landscape, and would like to see one again now. Ravilious's paintings evoke it well. This mostly granite based landscape is not so interesting in shape, but I've enjoyed being up here on the watershed between Channel and Biscay, and feel the air is healthier than further down the slopes. But we now feel we want to be nearer to water, and to town life too. One of the things I missed in the Sussex chalk was the presence of water 'only the dew pond on the height'.

Jeff said...

I had no idea you'd lived in Brittany for so long! I thought you were a somewhat more recent arrival. Twenty years is a good amount of time to spend anywhere; I'll look forward to seeing what your next adventure will be (and to reading all of your daily November posts!).