Autumn contrast

Autumn contrast, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I love the colours of autumn.

no dead mice on the lawn today...

...just a mushroom. I suspect my housemate (whose lawn it is) will be unimpressed.

The weather feels very late autumnnal, almost wintry. The trees I've been admiring on my way to work have almost lost all their leaves and look woebegone and naked. The sky is overcast and everywhere is damp and drizzly.

Still, today is also the birthday of one my Cambridge friends (Happy Birthday Lizzie!) and tonight we're off to a wonderfully named pub which I probably should have visited before now. Can you guess what it's called?

brown and gold

brown and gold, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I've been wandering in the woods again.

The colours are beautiful, breath-taking. I met someone else who was wandering round with a camera, trying to capture the beauty of the brown carpet, golden canopy and connecting grey-green trunks.

Beechwood has two parts, one older than the other. The younger part was golden before the older, but now the leaves are gone and it's in its winter bareness. The last time I was in the woods, the newer part of the wood was shut off for work, so I hadn't seen it for a fortnight or so. It was a shock to walk through the gate from one part into the other and go from rich golds to stark greys. Everything changes.

As I walked, I thought about how I've changed since I discovered these woods early this year. It's been a tough year. Nothing exactly went to plan. I'm still waiting for life to resolve somehow and make sense. I've been waiting for autumn to come to my woods and make them beautiful and now it has. That gives me hope that life will get better; change has come and will come and is coming.

winter of a dormouse

I feel like a dormouse today. No, not for dinner. I feel like curling up somewhere warm and cosy until it's spring again. Actually I like autumn, and cold weather's OK when you've got heating and warm duvets and a hot water bottle, but it's so dark and gloomy I don't want to do much.

This week I have managed to do three mornings (10-2) at work, which feels like an achievement. I've also been out doing things on Monday night, Tuesday night and Wednesday night. All of which might possibly be contributing to feeling the need for hibernation.

I'm staying in tonight, where it's warm and cosy and snuggly.

hearts in the sky

hearts, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I went, I saw fireworks, I ooh-ed and ah-ed. I took pictures. This is my favourite. More on Flickr.

fireworks!

It's bonfire night! I'm off soon to meet up with friends to watch the city firework display. I will take my cameras and see what interesting photos I can take.

sunday

Well it appears I have at least 2 readers. Thank you guys!

I've just spent the afternoon sleeping which is a terrible waste of a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon. My excuse is that having heard Dave Devenish speak at church this morning, I really want to hear him again at Blaze (our 18-30s evening) and I knew I wouldn't be awake enough if I didn't have a little nap first.

Some of us were talking over lunch after church about faith and plans for the future and about Psalm 37v4: 'Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give the desires of your heart.' The verse seems ambiguous. Is it that God gives us the desires or what we desire? Not that that's really the point - the point is the first bit, 'Delight yourself in the LORD', not in anything else. But sometimes God does give us things we desire, even silly little things. I remember thinking at one point in my life how nice it would be to live somewhere where I could cycle to work, which was small enough not to have to spend ages on the train to get anywhere. I never pursued that dream consciously, but that's where I've ended up. Funny. :-) So if God can give us the small desires, He can be trusted with the big ones too.

If you go down to the woods today...

scrunch, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

(Or if you had earlier. It might be a bit dark and scary now.) You might have found me, scrunching leaves and taking photos. It was a beautiful sunny day and I had the Teddy Bears' Picnic stuck in my head.

(There are more if you follow the photo onto flickr.)

september I'll remember

It feels like autumn. Cycling to and from work, there's a definite chill in the air. I went blackberrying on the way home yesterday and somehow it wasn't as much fun as it was in August when it was sunny and warm. All the easy berries had gone and though there are still many more to come, there's not that feeling of abundant fruit anymore. And I got stung by nettles and stood in a cow pat which is enough to make anyone feel grumpy.

Still, I like autumn. Brisk cold sunny days, wearing skirts and boots and jumpers. I'm in need of jumpers, I've slimmed out of last year's. Two weeks or so left at work, one essay left to write for my OU course, a stack of books to read for my MA course. Back to being a full-time student again, back to being penniless again.

It's going to be a busy month, this September.