Week 47

Rainy London streets; oak and crab apple match; and...peak beech week?

Hello and welcome to the weekly post where together we here on Lia’s Living Almanac track the minutiae of the year’s changes, week by week. We do it by everyone piling in on the comments section with a few things that have made their week feel particularly ‘this week in the year’, and then I assemble them all into a ‘welcome mat of comments’ as somebody called it last week, before noting a couple of my own.

It always astonishes me how different each week can be, and this week’s feels very late autumn/early Christmas. Plus there is a definite theme of crafting and knitting creeping in. Tis the season to knit socks and hot water bottle covers, it seems.

Here’s your Week 46:

Making my own Christmas cards

Planning new Christmas decorations - Nordic/ folklore/ woodland themed with tiny toadstools, shiny red heart baubles & gingerbread houses

The wood burner roaring with the strong draw of the wind

The oaks turning, a sign of the last gasp of autumn

Watching the daily corvid commute as hordes of crows fly east to west in the morning & back again at dusk to roost together

Mist pooled in the valley bottom like spilt milk

The first proper leaf shuffle of the season

Making mince pies with the last of last November's homemade mincemeat

Finishing knitting a lovely bright orange cardigan just in time for the leaves on the trees across the river to mirror it

Finally planting a drift of Tenby daffs in the front garden

Using up some questionable wool from the year’s wool stash knitting a pair of socks that look a bit like liquorice allsorts

Picking up some willow sticks to make a wreath base

Visiting magical Christmas at Kew to see the lights with two little ones, one of whom insisted on being carried the whole way around…

The shapes of the nearly bare branches with the sun streaming through

The beginning of the 40 day pre-Christmas Orthodox Church Advent fast - lots of hummus and lentils

In bed with the flu for two days

Planning my first ever advent window, as a group of us locals wait to be told - by an unknown neighbour in a Facebook group - which December date we've each been allocated, to decorate our front room windows for passers-by

Each day a little bit darker on the drive to and from work, arriving at work before sunrise now and driving home as dusk settles

Just surrendering to the garden gently folding in on itself, and knowing by and large it will mostly be ok without my help

Completing a cosy hot water bottle cover which was put to use immediately as I retired to bed with a shivery cold

Enjoying the bright stars in the sky on a clear night, but with squelchy mud underfoot at all times

Collecting pretty leaves with good intentions to make leaf garlands or pictures only to find a crumpled pocket of leaf crumbs days later

Lighting a candle in an evening to signal 'grown up time'

Gorgeous yellow gingko trees - folding the leaves into butterflies to hold in the palm of my mittens

A lovely mixture of gloomy, festive, cosy and autumnal. I approve.

Here’s my Week 47:

Rainy London streets

I was in London and walking along the street in the rain and it was grey and gloomy and suddenly all of these red London buses pulled up and the lights changed and the whole wet street shone with reflections. London is in fact quite extremely Christmassy already, much more so than Bristol it seems to me, and there were lots of Christmas lights, but hmm…this is what caught my eye.

Oak and crab apple match

My oak tree in the park has finally turned colour and the crab apple next to it is almost the exact same shade. I keep trying to capture it from different angles and this is my best go. I love it when things surprise match.

Peak beech week?

Long time readers will recall that we noted peak beech week last year…could this be it come around again? I am certainly noticing loads of beautiful beech hedges, and this beech carpet has appeared in the woods. Same with you? I liked these two, walking along in their yellow and red rain coats too.

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That’s it from me. Apart from a reminder that Christmas is coming, and that you can buy The Almanac 2024 right here. It’s really pretty and useful (and super low priced at The Bad Place at the moment).

Everyone is welcome to join in ahead of next week’s post, just press on the comment button below and tell us what you have done/seen/eaten/made/smelt that felt particularly ‘this week’ to you. I can’t wait to hear.