Monday 24th November, 2014
There isn't much colour in the garden at this time of year apart from various shades of green and brown. Most of the leaves have fallen as we approach the end of November but at least the grass remains green throughout winter and we do have some evergreen trees and shrubs.
One exception this week is cotoneaster horizontalis. It is a modest little shrub, easy to overlook, but it comes into its own at this time of year when it stands out briefly against the green background . . . with its scarlet berries and little round bright red leaves. There was an old shrub in the garden which we cut down because sections kept dying back and it didn't look very decorative. But we still have more plants than we need because the birds have dropped seed all over the garden. I have a good view from the kitchen of this one on the wild flower bank. Soon the leaves will drop and the blackbirds will eat the berries and all that will remain will be the herringbone patterns of twiggy branches.
Another colourful exception, which is with us all year, is the morning sky. At this time of year the sun rises late enough for us to be up and about in time to admire the occasional lovely sunrise colours. Most mornings recently have been heavily overcast but this morning at about 07-30 the sky was almost clear with just high clouds over North Barrule which were lit up by the rising sun and looked lovely through the bare branches of the big beech near the house. I didn't fiddle with this photo on the computer but I did use the camera's "sunset" setting which tends to dramatise the colours.
A few days earlier I took this less dramatic photo of the equally beautiful sky over Ramsey to the north of the glen.
The third (less welcome) colourful exception, which I also mentioned in the last post, was the invasion of male pheasants. Six have been removed from the garden so far this autumn and transported our version of Botany Bay, the old Australian penal colony, near the Sulby River. I hope they don't find their way back.
The weather is always a good topic when there nothing much of interest to photograph or report. It appears that our monsoon season is over. The second half of November has been drier (or perhaps "less wet" is a better description) than the first two weeks. If the five day forecast is correct we should only get between 7.5mm and 27mm of rain before the weekend. The frost which was forecast for Sunday and Monday mornings did not materialise although there has been very heavy dew and we even had some intermittent sunshine and one brilliantly sunny blue sky day with hardly a cloud in sight!
Our "I can't believe it's November!" day - which we enjoyed yesterday.
There may not be much to report now but it won't be long before I am spoiled for choice. In the glen, the first signs of spring appear before autumn has gasped its last breath. We don't have to wait until April to breed snowdrops and daffodils in the dead land. . . . the green shoots are already pushing through the earth with the promise of the first flowers to follow in a few short weeks. By April the spring bulbs will all be over and we will be looking forward to the cherry blossom.
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