Three Seasonal Things #3

Chrysanthemums for Remembrance; Indoor/outdoor fireworks; winter revealing itself in autumn trees

Hello!

Did you spot the full moon this week? Did you stand around a bonfire? Eat any cinder toffee?

Here’s some things that seemed particularly ‘now’ about my week:

Chrysanthemums for Remembrance

I was lucky enough to visit Electric Daisy Flower Farm and they sent me home with a big bunch of chrysanthemums the colours of an autumn woodland. I used to work in a florist, and our fancier clients would often specify ‘no xanths’ in their bouquets. Chrysanthemums are so dependable and so long lasting and can be grown right here in the UK right into early winter, and so they had come to be considered cheap filler flowers, to be left out to make more room for hothoused and flown-in beauties.

But look at them!

Chrysanthemums were the flower of Remembrance before it became the poppy, and they make more sense to me. They flower at the darkest time. This is a good week to have a vase of chrysanthemums on the table.

Indoor/outdoor fireworks

There is a huge fireworks display every year in the school field a few streets away. The field borders the allotments where we used to have a plot, and every year when the kids were little, we would spurn the official event and go up to our own plot and light a little fire and have sparklers and barbecued sausages in buns. We don’t have the plot anymore, and we have a little dog now who gets scared of such things any way, and so this tradition has gone, but I watched it out of my bedroom window, at least, and then ran downstairs to help my daughter comfort the dog. I felt a little sad about it, but that’s ok. Things change, and the little dog is worth it.

A vision of winter through the autumn leaves

I went for a walk yesterday morning on Brandon Hill, which has wonderful Narnia-esque lampposts, and rises up over the fancier parts of Bristol. And I could just really see the delicacy of autumn. The leaves are a gauze now, barely clinging there, the trees one big gust of wind away from their winter selves. And I could so clearly see the true shape of them now, that has been hidden by leaves all summer and autumn, and how this scene will look when winter is really here.

Let me know what you have noticed this week. I love to read your comments and I know others do too. Someone got in touch to say that she is housebound and loves reading these to feel more in touch with what is going on outside. So, this is my challenge to you: if you had to pick something you had done or seen or eaten or heard (etc…) this week to show a person what made this past week particular, what would it be?