The Gallery — November

This might be one of my favourite times of the year, November.  So I am a bit pleased it is the theme for the Gallery this week.   I love the excuse to not go out.  To stay inside and do nothing but drink hot chocolate and watch TV.  When it is not so freezing that your ears break off when you go outside.  Or your plans disrupted by the wrong kind of snow on the track or six feet of it sitting up against your back door.

November is when we really think the year is coming to an end, the leaves are well and truly coming off the trees, there is sometimes a frost in the morning, and we have to start scraping the car.   The sun is really low and on some roads can make you feel as though you are driving directly into it.   But it warms your soul at the same time and makes you realise that summer was not that long ago.

November is also about birthdays for us too.   We have a weekend of them.   E first, she turned 15 this year.   My baby girl, my last born is now a fully fledged teen.   My daughter who did a Thirty Seconds From Mars gig at the O2 on Saturday night.  Standing so they could be closer to the action.  On crutches as she had broken a toe the day before.

The next day is Papa Jim’s, Hopalong, Dad to Bruce, Jim to me.   We didn’t get to share cake and Whisky on his birthday this year with him, so will make up for it in Cornwall at Christmas.

The day after is Roger’s, Bruce’s brother’s.   Gone but not forgotten, Rog.   You may not be here to share cake either, you are always in our thoughts, more so on your birthday.   RIP Rog.

And so that is November.   Birthdays and sunsets.   And sunrises.  There have been corkers this month.   The sky has literally been pink.

The big pic at the top though was last weekend, driving to the kennels to drop Cheeky off before we went away for the weekend.   It is right out in the sticks and one particular part of the drive there is through a country lane where trees form a tunnel.  On the way back it was surreal, really dark with the light beckoning ahead.   I wondered if I had in fact died and this was the bright light everybody talked about.

Thankfully it being 9am on a Friday morning the road was empty so I could stop in the middle of the road (don’t worry I could see there was nothing behind me, it’s a straight road before you all start about road safety) and take this pic on my phone.

Orange leaves, bear trees, low light.   It sums up November pretty perfectly for me.

What about you?  What says November to you?