Today was haircut day for me. I have a haircut roughly every twelve weeks - something like that. My appointment was for two thirty so before I went over to Woodseats, I decided to burn off some calories with an extended walk in our neighbourhood.
It's clearly autumn out there right now and on Sunday morning British households will once again go through the rigmarole of putting our clocks back an hour to mark the end of BST (British Summer Time). Why can't they just let time plod along instead of arresting it twice a year? Ridiculous.
The top picture shows Brincliffe Edge Road - just three hundred yards from our house. I love roads like that where trees arch over and the road itself takes on the appearance of a tunnel. That road soon leads to Chelsea Park where this unidentified yellow tree was clearly singing its autumn lament.
And then on well-heeled Chelsea Road I noticed leaves gathering in clusters or up against walls, making late October collages without human assistance...
I like the look of this modern house squeezed into a triangular plot on a short road called Brincliffe Gardens. Fallen leaves are gathering in the driveway waiting for the householders to bring out their garden rake and sweeping brush. It's the same on our little driveway. The lost leaves gather annually like confetti drifts in a churchyard.
Home from the haircut, I noticed the volunteer sumac tree in our garden blazing red in late afternoon sunshine with its weird furry staghorn spears pointing to the skies above.
And so yes, that summer of summers has truly gone now and we are most definitely under autumn's spell, waiting for the darkness where Jack Frost resides, already cracking his knuckles.
These are lovely photos, YP. You've brightened my day.
ReplyDeleteSo kind. Thank you Kelly.
DeleteJack Frost was linked to the Norse giants Jokul and Frosti.
ReplyDeleteGrandfather Frost in Russia. Frau Holle in Germany. Kung Bore in Sweden.
* The frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. *
Coleridge writes that his cradled baby slept peacefully on such a night.
As a father you know about looking in on your child before retiring.
It was a November golden and wet
DeleteAs there had been little wind that year and the leaves were yet
Yellow on the great trees ...
A Soldier Dear to Us. Stevie Smith.
Stan Barstow's third novel, The Watchers on the Shore, was inspired
by Stevie Smith's poem Not Waving But Drowning (1957),
Stevie Smith spent her life in Palmer's Green, and enjoyed London's
parks and cemeteries.
An agnostic church-haunter, she was an original.
Stevie Smith was born in Hull and her childhood home on De La Pole Avenue is just a stone's throw from Hull City's ground. Your comment left me scurrying off to find her and some more of her poetry...
DeleteThere is a face I know too well,
A face I dread to see,
So vain it is, so eloquent
Of all futility.
It is a human face that hides
A monkey soul within,
That bangs about, that beats a gong,
That makes a horrid din.
Sometimes the monkey soul will sprawl
Athwart the human eyes,
And peering forth, will flesh its pads,
And utter social lies.
So wretched is this face, so vain,
So empty and forlorn,
You well may say that better far
This face had not been born.
Could that yellow tree be a ginko? They have spectacular yellow autumn colour.....
ReplyDeleteYes. It could be but I am not sure Will.
DeleteBut why would that tree be lamenting? Sympathetic fallacy really. It could just as easily be saying, thank heavens all that spring and summer hard work is over, now I can shrug off those bloody leaves and have a good rest over winter.
ReplyDeleteGreat photos, as ever. As for your (possibly assumed) grumpiness about daylight saving, perhaps you should move to China which runs only one time zone across all its longitudes, all year. I'm surprised the USA isn't running a human rights campaign about those poor people in Xinjiang compelled to live on Beijing time.
Messing with time is a bind twice a year. They don't do it in Arizona. I think I would rather move there than China. Oh - and I have always thought of autumn as a sad time as trees shake off their summer clothes. It's not logical - it's just how I "feel" it Marcellous.
DeleteI liked the sound of Brincliffe Edge Road, so took a little fly-over via Google earth, it looks so green and leafy, a nice area.
ReplyDeleteIt is a nice road, linking Nether Edge with Banner Cross where we live.
DeleteWe have to fiddle with the clocks this Sunday, too. Nobody I know has anything good to say about switching between "summer time" and "winter time", and the complaints are repeated regularly twice a year - to no avail, it seems.
ReplyDeleteThe tree-lined road looks inviting; I want to find out what's round the bend.
Yellow leaves against blue sky; it can't get more autumn than that.
EARLY AUTUMN : Woody Her man & Ralph Burns.
DeleteLyrics, Johnny Mercer who wrote Moonriver.
Sung by Ella Fitzgerald on YouTube.
Also, Anita O'Day.
We should follow the French example and riot all across Europe... about changing the clocks. There are no benefits - only negatives in my opinion.
DeleteYour words paint a picture as lovely as any of the photographs!
ReplyDeleteI always used to dislike Autumn but very recently I've changed my mind. It's a time for things to rest, rejuvenate and become strong again, ready for the spring when energy is required in abundance.
John Donne hoped it would always be Autumn in heaven. Not me.
DeleteI've never been an Autumn man ; I wish I could change my mind like you.
ANGELINA JORDAN - AUTUMN LEAVES.
*And soon I'll hear old Winter's song ... *
Christina...your were lost but autumn has found you. The melancholy of autumn can be endearing. We know it's not forever.
DeleteAutumn doing what it does best.
ReplyDeleteAt least we have seasons in these British Isles.
DeletePerfect photos for Autumn, though the Sumac tree takes to red with too much colour.
ReplyDeleteParks are the hidden gems we should always safeguard. We have a lot to thank the Victorians for.
The Victorians were real "can do" people and it helped that working people were paid buttons!
DeleteThese are such great photos. Autumn is my favorite season, and you sure have captured it. I love that first photo. Some of my favorite places to walk are similar to the road that you shared.
ReplyDeleteKind of you to say this Michael... not taking the mickey either!
DeleteSumac seed heads burn slowly and give off a steady smoke, old school beekeepers used them in bee smokers to calm the bees. My father often had a bag of them in the back of the pickup truck.
ReplyDeleteI never knew that David. Thanks.
DeleteI do love the colors of fall; our trees here are not quite ready to change just yet.
ReplyDeleteWhich news service are you with?...That's fake news. Terrible.
DeleteFallen leaves as "late October collages" -- wonderful turn of phrase!
ReplyDeleteMerveilleuse ! Mon vieux est en poete.
DeleteI am pleased that you spotted that detail Debra. Thank you.
DeleteWe call those "tunnel" roads "canopy" roads and Tallahassee and surrounding areas are famous for them. I think you would like them very much.
ReplyDeleteAnd I like the photos you shared today very much.
Canopy roads! Yes - that's much better than tunnel roads I think.
DeleteLovely photos! Here, too many in the neighborhood use loud leaf blowers to move their leaves to the curb. So noisy! We still use rakes as I can't stand the loud noise.
ReplyDeleteYou can't beat rakes for autumn leaves and they don't use electricity either.
DeleteI love that photo of Brincliffe Edge Road. I wonder how long the road has been there, transporting people. That's the thing about England, the roads are old, the towns are old, the churches are old, there is a history. We do have history here, but it is a history of geography and the land, not as easy to see. I find that as I get older though, I am starting to see what has always been there in front of my eyes. The area east of us is dotted with sloughs, all formed by the last glacial retreat.
ReplyDeleteNeat idea about piles of leaves making collages.
ReplyDeleteSeeing random leaves down there... they can often seem like art.
DeleteThe clocks in the US will "fall back" an hour on November 1. Congress is debating whether or not to keep Daylight Saving Time but that debate has been going on for a long time. SSDD. Thank you for sharing your beautiful autumn colors walk.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for dropping by again Diaday.
DeleteI love crisp autumn days, as I do their equivalent in all the seasons. The sadness is that we seem now to get fewer of them now - a sort of greyness so often predominates, especially here in the west. I am heading north next week, and hope to rekindle memories of the big Northumberland skies of my youth.
ReplyDeleteWill you be visiting the iconic tree in Sycamore Gap?...I have news for you my friend.
DeleteWhat lovely scenery this time of the year. The modern house really needs a balcony to observe the comings and goings in the street.
ReplyDeleteI love sumac. I wish we had some. That modern house IS pretty great. Nice big windows.
ReplyDelete