I heard this poem by Thomas Hood read out on radio 3 the other morning..

No sun - no moon
!No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

Now I can identify with that (though for me it's more  representative of February) but the optimist in me - or is it the contrarain? - thought I've had a good November with probably most of those things in it and I looked back over November's photographs and came up with...

Quite a lot of sunshine! And a beautiful new moon (but no photo)

Morning coffee on a frosty table

And raking up leaves at noon.

Dawn captured in a beautiful shot by Heather

And a dusk walk on the shore path.

A beautiful dusk skyline in Christmassy Edinburgh

Warmth from stacking them, carrying them and burning them!

And cheerfulness and healthful ease in a pop-up bar in Edinburgh's Christmas Market

And this is taking so long I will have to finish it next time!

I hope you had a good November x

Grand, but welcoming and not too expensive for a light lunch. Today is the first time I have been in here and I am thinking what a great place to wait for a train, or to meet someone. I could get used to this!

A great little Ted Talk here.

Would you agree?

Can you apply her three steps to change something you want to change?

What wakens you every morning?

This morning I awoke to the sound of two angry men in London shouting right in my ear about politics (radio alarm).

Given that I was in a lovely cottage in the peaceful Highland town of Narin on the Moray Firth this seemed incongruous, and disturbing if not downright insane! (Sorry C!)

I resolved to always switch off someone else's alarm and on the long journey home I tried all the different sounds on my phone alarm to find the most delightful and uplifting. It is called twinkle. :-) Sounds corny I know but at least it makes me smile. Call me idealistic but I want to start my day gently - ideally silent or to the sound of birdsong, but when I have to use an alarm I will make sure it is my own.

My first venture into candle making.

This is the huge leftover lump of wax from the wildly expensive candle  (The White Company) last Christmas. It wouldn't burn any further and I couldn't bear to throw it out so wrapped it tightly in a plastic bag and put it in the back of a cupboard. It still smells absolutely fabulous so the plan is to melt it down and make some small candles from it....

Have any of you ever done this?

..but not too much..

Red poinsettias are very popular house plants here in uk at Christmas, but I couldn't resist this mini white one from Marks and Spensers for £3.

I sat on it on the bus by accident but it bounced back!

I'd love to know if your country has a particular plant associated with Christmas..

  An AMD diagnosis is not a passport to blindness, but rather a wake up call to clean up your diet.

This is one of the headlines of an interesting seven page article in Get Well magazine.

Thank you Maggie for sending me this. So encouraging!

..to make the most of my winter.

Sixteen

Keep garedening. Pruning, tdying, weeding, raking, pottering - not leaving it all till spring.

Seventeen

Keep moving. The gardening eill help. It's all too easy for me to hibernate and barely move!

Eighteen

Make candles.

Nneteen

Travel (big plans afoot!)

Twenty

Think up a really good word for 2020.

..things I plan to do this winter.

Eleven

Do something I've never done before. No idea what yet!

Twelve

Check out when the winter meteor showers are and put them on the calendar.

Thirteen

Donate surplus Christmassy things in good time.

Fourteen

Lie in the hammock and look at the Milky Way, even if only for a minute ot two!

Fifteen

Plan menus for visitors well in advance.


Is your list coming along?

Five  

Make at least one recipe from each of these books which I bought because I loved the titles and the images. Still do, but maybe I'll love the recipes too!

Six

Go for a walk in the dark. Or on a bright moonlit night.

Seven

Find a sauna somewhere nice.

Eight

Make a north point in the snow.

Nine

Go to Scottish Ballet's production of The Snow Queen (tickets already purchased!)

Ten

Take a day 'off' to re-read Eowen Ivey's The Snow Child - preferably a snowy day. I have done this each year for several  years now - food laid in, hot drinks, no housework, pausing every now and then to watch the snow fall...

To embrace the cold outside (great health bennefits I am told...)

To enjoy being snug inside - woodburner/candles/cushions and throws.

To eat great food and not put on weight. Quite a challenge.

To enjoy every minute of the run up to Christmas and totally ignore the hype.

I plan to make a list of twenty things......

Join me?

...put off asking for help even when you know you really need it?

And then finally ask and find it is freely given and wasn't a big deal?

We think we ought to do everything ourselves, don't want to be a nuisance or a burden, are afraid of looking foolish because we don't know how to do something, or we dread being told no and then we might die of embarassment. Somehow it is very hard to say the simple words Would you help me with this. (For some weird reason I can remember how to say it in Swedish but find it sometimes almost impossible to say in my own language.)

I have an eye condition which means that in certain light I don't see very well and I have had to learn to speak up and ask for help on many occasions. I have found that people love to help. I have never been refused help when I have asked for it (and I do know that no-one actually dies of embarassment!)

So I turn things around in my head and ask myself If someone asked me to do this would I think they ought to do it themselves, or they are a nuisance or stupid? In all likelihood I would think they must have a reason for asking and I'd probably be happy to help if I could.

There's also perhaps the idea that to ask for help is to show weakness but knowing what courage it sometimes takes I prefer to think it shows strength to be able to ask for what I need.

Always learning...

What do you think?

First snow on the tops means it's time for the orange and cinnamon candle. Love it.

Yes, but having fun!

Thoroughly energised from my little frosty walk round the garden (my daughter says she expects a phone call from my neighbours one day, but the garden is pretty private - I don't think they notice!) I made a treat of a Sunday breakfast.

I learned to make Omelette Confiture when I worked one summer in a hotel in St Ives in Cornwall when I was nineteen.

First set a pretty table and light a candle.

Separate an egg and whisk up the white

Fold in the yolk gently

,and fry in a teaspoon of butter till nicely browned underneath. Meanwhile heat the grill

finish off under the grill adding a spoonful of Beries and Cherries jam

Heat a skewer on the hotplate (excuse the state of mine!)

Fold the omelette in half, dust with icicng sugar and with oven glove on (!) mark with skewer

Chef would have garnished it with some fresh berries but I had none left...

Yum!

If you make it with mincemeat it is called Omelette Noel.

What's your favourite Sunday breakfast?

Here is a nice article from Hygge House and I also enjoyed this from the same writer, Danish born and well travelled Alex. A little more depth than some jygge articles.

And in case you've not had enough of my robins - click here for how it all began!

.
  See this post. Perhaps a parent of the current one? Who knows. Robins can live 10 years or so and we have had several tame ones here.

I've been enjoying a browse through the blog today.

Perhaps you would too?

I started by looking at previous Novembers - just scroll down the  sidebar to find them.

 
I watched the film H is for Hawk recently - what patience!

I have been coaxing a friendly robin to come nearer by putting a little seed on the steps every morning for a month or so - starting on the bottom step and gradually moving  up to the bench on the porch.

Those mornings when I have been out raking up leaves the robin has been around, but playing hide and seek with me and I didn't get any photographs until yesterday...when it realised there were a few mealworms mixed in with the seeds

All this took a couple of hours as she is still quite timid and flew off if I moved, so the qulaity of the photographs is not great (and the sun was behind her) but as she gets more tame there will be lots of opportunities...

I love the company of a robin, don't you?

It loves me raking up leaves..

I seem to be out at both dawn and dusk lately....enchanting times of day that can almost make me believe in magic.

What's your favourite time of day?