October is my birth month so every year it feels like coming home. The harvest is in and apples are still falling. You can sometimes hear them thump upon the earth. Unpicked brambles are mouldering on their briars. Red tractors drag harrows over the undulations of farmland. Days are shared equally between darkness and light. Migratory birds have departed or are in the process of coming back. Clouds scud to or from the north east. Summer is but a phantasm now - a sweet lament while winter growls like a famished creature, waiting for signals of weakness, ready to strike.
The tenth month is meant for reflection, tinged with sadness and yet it might be unspeakably beautiful too with shafts of burnished light gilding foliage that dies gloriously in shades of amber, russet and scarlet. Sometimes there's the aroma of burning - like faraway funeral pyres - invisible wood smoke transported upon a buffeting wind. And forty years ago my wife married me in this month at Owston Ferry and yes, it does seem like yesterday.
Welcome to October.
Congratulations all round YP - your birthday, wedding anniversary and excellent photos. I particularly like the one of the rippled sand at Cleethorpes.
ReplyDeleteThe tide goes out a long way there Carol.
DeleteFor most of my life, October was a time spent in tractors hauling in grain from the fields and unloading it into grain bins for storage. Occasionally towards the end of October, it was a time of doing fall dirt work before the grounds froze. I always enjoyed watching the season change through the windows of a tractor.
ReplyDeleteWas it warm inside your tractor cab? Was your da a farmer?
DeleteIn my younger days, it was mostly on open cabbed tractors but by my middle teens, mostly we had enclosed cab tractors with heat, A/C and even a radio. It definitely made days go by faster with conditioned air and a radio.
DeleteMy dad is a farmer descending from a long line of farmers all the way back to Virginia colonial days. Neither I nor my brother became farmers and thus broke that long line of farmers.
A beautiful ode to October. It's a special month in your family.
ReplyDeleteKind of you to say that Margaret. Thanks.
DeleteFlash Edge stone Weetabix or Hovis bread crusts.
ReplyDeleteYou have a vivid imagination Dave!
DeleteA golden month indeed.
ReplyDeleteI'll sing you this October song...
DeleteI'm glad that your marriage leaves you feeling that way.
ReplyDeleteOctober is a month I love and hate. I love the colours. Despite my Dad saying that I should never hate anything I get frustrated by the fact that October can be a month of exceptional gales here and that can so often mean disrupted travel on the ferries.
I am glad that my plans are never affected by whether or not a ferry will operate.
DeleteCongratulations to you and Shirley, on your 40th Wedding Anniversary.
ReplyDeleteThou art a child of October, born on the tenth month.
Amber, russet, scarlet, and the tang of woodsmoke: A poet too.
O, for a walk along Cleethorpes Sands, now that Old Autumn is here.
Haggerty
P.S. Katya Balen's novel *October, October* is now in paperback.
The book to read if you like trees and owls.
I have become a slow reader. Still mooching along through "Uncle Tom's Cabin".
DeleteUncle Tom's Cabin: I await your review.
DeleteIt reminded me of the story in *Under the Volcano*, where a child slave is bought for 45 pesos, and starved to death in seven months.
Saint Peter fled south, along the Appian Way, escaping the evil of pagan Rome.
Yet the same evil appeared, nineteen centuries later, in Christian America.
Haggerty
You may be waiting some time old chap.
DeleteOctober is a good time for weddings - we celebrate our anninversary later this month.
ReplyDeleteAll the best people were married in October.
DeleteBeautiful photo, gorgeous reflection on the month.
ReplyDeleteThanks MM. Minnie Mouse?
DeleteWinter draws on Mr YP.
ReplyDeleteBetter get your long-johns out Tasker.
DeleteHappy 40th wedding anniversary to you and Shirley, and also happy birthday to you!
ReplyDeleteMore often than not, in my area September and October are sunnier and more beautiful than July and August. This year seems to confirm my experience of 53 years.
I love these early autumn weeks with their special light, abundance of colours, fruit, nits and mushrooms, and also because for me, they already carry a whispered promise of Christmas.
Indeed. Early autumn can be so lovely.
DeleteEnjoy your birth month and congratulations to you and your wife on 40 years of marriage. This is a lovely post.
ReplyDeleteI just said farewell to my birth month, which is my favorite for a variety of reasons. (Earth, Wind, and Fire did a nice song about it)
Hey, hey, hey
DeleteBa-dee-ya, say, do you remember?
Ba-dee-ya, dancing in September
Ba-dee-ya, never was a cloudy day
The second photo is a prize winner. So like me, you are very balanced person, although you could be someone with a nasty sting.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a friggin' wasp Andrew!
DeleteHappy Birthday for whenever with many more in store.
ReplyDeleteI love the Autumn and Spring, really dislike the heat in the Summer and Cold in winter.
Briony
x
I dislike dark chocolate and Tories.
DeleteWell, my birthday is also in October. My Dad always told my what a nice day it was the day I was born. The next day it snowed!
ReplyDeleteGod must have blessed that day.
DeleteCongratulations on your birthday and your wedding anniversary. Our anniversary is also October,( 38 years this Friday), but it was a Spring wedding, with photos under the cherry blossoms on a balmy 20 degree day much like today has been.
ReplyDeleteWe were married in the autumn on a blustery but dry day. Congratulations on 38 years of marriage!
DeleteIt is also our wedding anniversary in October...yesterday...47 years! My birthday very soon too. Another birthday expected next Friday...4 th grandchild!
ReplyDeleteHow delightful! A fourth grandchild... I hope that he/she enters the world safely and lives to a ripe old age. On that theme huge congratulations on almost reaching 47 years of marriage! Quite an achievement.
DeleteCongratulations on your birthday and wedding anniversary, you have captured it all in a beautiful lyrical way with words.
ReplyDeleteOoooh, I love the Cleethorpes photo! October is always a good month, especially toward the end when the colorful leaves are out.
ReplyDeleteI've seen photos of your wife. Forty years? My god man, was she a child bride?
ReplyDeleteFall, or autumn as the english insist upon calling it, is always my favorite time of year and the most beautiful.
Happy Birthday to you!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your 40 years of marriage!
What a nice month October is in the Pudding house. I hope this one is the best one yet!
Your second paragraph captures so well the month, the season, and the mere blink that a lifetime together can feel like. Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, and may you have many more of each. My husband and I had 40 years together as well.
ReplyDeleteMy heartiest congratulations to you and Shirley on the 40th anniversary of your wedding, and to you alone on the sixty-somethingth anniversary of your birth.
ReplyDeleteSince 1957 October has been the month in which my mother died, and although it has been 64 years now, in many ways it seems like yesterday too. Beginning this year, October will also be the month my oldest grandson gained himself a wife. A much happier memory.