GMT blues

British Summer Time ended last night, we turned the clocks back an hour and this evening feels very wintry with the lights on at 5pm. We have had some blustery weather for a few days and the last of the apples came down along with the leaves from the trees and the Virginia creeper. I was beginning to feel gloomy but a passage from Carel Kapek's The Gardener's Year came to mind:

Bare trees are not such a forlorn sight; they look a bit like brooms or besoms and a bit like scaffolding ready for building. But if there is a last leaf on one of these bare trees, quivering in the wind, it is like the last flag flying on a battlefield, like a standard which a dead man's hand is clutching on the field of the slain. We fell, but we did not surrender; our colours are still flying.

So, having put the last of those apples to stew gently on the stove, I went out again to look at the bare trees and found that there were, indeed, a few leaves fluttering nobly in the wind. Heartened, I came back inside and read Ecclesiastes - a very good book to help one put things into perspective! And then I listened to Eva Cassidy singing Who knows where the time goes?

Time to shake off the end of summer melancholy and think of the positive aspects of long evenings by the fire: the knitting and sewing needles have already made a start on the mound of projects I have to get through in the next few weeks. Did you see the snug neck warmer over on Rattling On a few weeks ago? Here is my version, knitted in Sirdar Click Chunky yarn, with a large wooden button to finish it off.

Thanks, RO, it really was quick and easy and will make a lovely present for someone if I can bear to part with it!

I've also made Christmas stockings for my two granddaughters:

and here is my work in progress:

Gloomy moods don't last long around here. A few hours of sunshine would help to dispel this one, especially as it is the half-term holiday and there are lots of visitors in the area, hoping to spend a few days on the beaches before winter arrives. If the weather forecast is accurate, they'll have to settle for brollies and boots instead of buckets and spades, but the rock pools can be just as exciting as building sandcastles.