Autumn 10

More Keats than Shelley - or maybe not.

Saturday 7th November, 2015.

Only three more weeks of autumn.  At the end of the month the blog titles will switch from Autumn 13 to Winter 1 - and If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?   I don’t have the patience to memorise or even read poetry.  I have a sort of “best bits” attitude and the quotes that always come to mind at this time of year are from the odes - To Autumn and Ode to the West Wind - by Keats and Shelley.  We are still waiting for the wild west wind to strip the last of the leaves from the trees but the season of mists has arrived.

According to the local news there were no gales in October.  It was less windy, drier and sunnier than usual with only half the average rainfall for the month.  They only measured 53.6mm of rain at Ronaldsway, on the southeast coast of the Island, while we had 110mm in the glen.  It shows what a difference a few hills make.  But the “drier” weather may be over.  The view from our windows since the beginning of November has revealed a generally damp and often misty garden.

Monday.

The redwings left as suddenly as they arrived.  After publishing the last post, I went to look out of the window and all was eerily quiet on the holly front.  They must have suddenly decided that six days was a long enough holiday break and set off on their travels again.

Never mind, we still have the robins to entertain us.  Our boss robin that controls the territory around the bird feeders has been doing his utmost to chase away an inoffensive dunnock.  I knew robins defended their territories from other robins and even from artificial robins.  But I thought their aggression was triggered by the red colouring on the breasts.  Could we have a colour blind robin patrolling outside the kitchen window?  I Googled “robin attacks dunnock” and found that our robin is far from unique.  There were numerous photos and even some videos of dunnocks being mugged by robins. But I still don’t know why they pick on dunnocks and tolerate chaffinches and other birds of a similar size. Someone suggested that it may be because dunnocks have a robin-like shape or that robins think that dunnocks are trying to usurp their territory.

Tuesday:  The big news is the lack of news.   There are no newspapers in the shops today because dense fog at Heysham yesterday delayed the ferry docking.  Flights have been cancelled too.  We haven’t been affected as badly as the mainland where the three day fog has caused travel chaos.

On Sunday we drove out to tip in glorious sunshine.  Although the fog was already affecting the mainland, there was just a thin layer of hill fog clinging to the upper slopes of our mountains. Illuminated by backlighting from the sun, it looked as though the hills were covered with wispy brilliant white cottonwool.  I was disappointed that my camera was out of action while the battery was being charged.  I have been putting off getting a spare battery for years because I couldn’t decide whether to get the expensive Panasonic battery or a cheaper substitute. Then, while I was writing this paragraph, I was suddenly inspired to check battery prices on the internet and discovered that the Panasonic batteries for my model camera were being discontinued and Amazon was selling the last few that they had in stock at about half price.  So I ordered one immediately.  Now I shouldn’t miss another chance to photograph cottonwool hills.  

I took my camera when we drove out with another load of garden refuse this morning - hoping for more special fog effects.  But the air was very hazy today and the view towards the glen and the hills from the tip wasn’t very interesting.

Wednesday: It is damp and drizzly outside.   I should brave the weather and do some more work in the garden but it is too tempting to stay warm and look out of the window.  The nerines outside the window at the end of the living room, which always flower later than those in the back garden because they are shaded by a conifer and Barry’s oak, are flowering at last.  I leant out of the window to take this photo of the wettest nerine flower I have ever seen.

Thursday

It is raining again. We drove down to Douglas in the morning.  Tim was due for a check-up at the rheumatology department.  It was the usual type of appointment.  They were behind schedule and he had to wait an hour to see the doctor - just to be told to keep on taking the medication.

I tried to take photos of the autumn leaves along our route to the hospital but it wasn’t easy.  The combination of rain, windscreen wipers, reflections on the windscreen and a bumpy road conspired to ruin my attempts.  I tried my usual method - taking about sixty photos in the hope of getting at least one good one - but it didn’t work.  These are the least bad of a bad bunch.

I regretted Wednesday’s laziness because it rained most of the afternoon and the garden was neglected for the second day in a row.

Friday.

Not only is it raining but the wild west wind has arrived.  The five day forecast makes depressing reading.  I won’t go into all the gory details but there are predictions of “rain some heavy” and “strong winds at times” for every day.  Plus a few comments about “risk of localised flooding” and hill fog - just to add variety.

So I am sitting inside again, looking out of the window at a sodden, leaf strewn garden and wondering how long I can put off gardening in the rain.

I don’t read much American literature but I have been reading Anne Tyler’s latest book.  I started reading her books after visiting Raleigh, North Carolina, where she was born and where our daughters went to university.  One of the characters in A Spool of Blue Thread often recalls the day she fell in love with her husband and she always starts the story “It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow and green afternoon”.  This stuck in my mind because I was curious about the yellowness of the afternoon.  She isn’t referring to “fall colors” because the story is set in July and the only trees mentioned in the book are tulip poplars.  They do have yellow flowers but they flower in May.  Perhaps it was just the sun - but that is really only yellow in children’s pictures - or maybe the sun shining through the canopy of leaves.  Whatever!  On the same theme, our recent autumn afternoons have been sometimes bright, occasionally breezy, always beautiful, and definitely yellow and green. We seldom have a sudden drop of temperature in autumn.  The colder weather creeps up on us gradually and the trees and shrubs can have yellow and green leaves at the same time like this wisteria.

The rain held off for a while in the afternoon and I was able to cut back two muck buckets of very wet old growth on the wildflower bank before it got dark.

Saturday

I didn’t think it would be possible but it is even wetter than Friday.  The only reasonable break in the rain came too late in the afternoon to start work outside.  Even the birds have been in a bad mood. The siskins have been particularly quarrelsome.  It made me wonder whether Isaac Watts knew much about bird behaviour when he wrote:

"Whatever brawls disturb the street,

There should be peace at home;

Where sisters dwell, and brothers meet,

Quarrels should never come.

Birds in their little nests agree” etc.

As Isaac Watts, wrote about 150 hymns I doubt whether he had much time for birdwatching.  Earlier today, while I was watching a tiny goldcrest, searching for food in the hawthorns, I noticed that he had a companion.  As soon as they caught sight of each other, one flew at the other in a threatening way and chased it out of the tree.  It occurred to me that territorial birds differ from humans.  They are more likely to behave aggressively towards their own species or birds that resemble them while humans can have more of a problem with people who look “different”.

It has been too wet to go outside with a camera so I resorted to taking photographs through the various windows.  We have windows in three sides of the house.  There are three in the front, facing slightly more east than south as far as I can tell from the satellite image.  The most accurate description is probably east-southeast.  Also one at the end of the living room facing south-south west and three facing the back garden (wnw) which get the late afternoon sun (if there is any!)

I have numbered these collages starting from most northerly window at the back and moving in an anti-clockwise direction around the house.

1. From the study on a wet yellow and green day!

2. The kitchen window - featuring the bird feeders.

3. The dining room window.  Note:There are glass sliding doors at the end of the dining room which open into the “conservatory”. It is used for storing garden tools and junk and is not suitable for scrutiny.

4. The window at the end of the living room overlooking the “rose garden”.

1. The big living room window facing the road.

2. The spare bedroom window which looks out over the front steps and has a good view of the white flowering cherry and the wisteria and clematis.

3. The main bedroom window overlooking the very wet patio above the garage.

4. Reflections of the railings and ripples from the raindrops in the puddles.

PS.  Our weather is set to get even worse before it gets better.  We are expecting the UK’s first named storm - Abigail - to arrive on Sunday evening.  The Daily Express whose raison d'être appears to be printing warnings of imminent and dire catastrophes - often weather related - is in its element.  It claims “Britain to be smashed by WORST STORM for a YEAR this weekend” - but it is more than likely to be yet another example of the Express crying wolf.