October in France (again!)

But this time with The Small Persons.

Mishmash of seasons – spectacular light, weirdly blue skies, lizards, temperatures around 27 degrees, ripe quinces…..warmest October since 1945, when records began. (And the second warmest October was last year…)

A magic slice of summer, no frosts yet at all. But of course there is a downside – there are daffodils with leaves a foot high, and lilac bushes with not only leaf buds but four actual flowers….in NOVEMBER?? This has got to be bad news for next spring. Rather scary. We’ll see.

Drawing a veil….

Some difficult months – not helped by the random popup ‘memory’ feature on the iphone – thanks, Apple….

But after some debate SpinningStreak has decided to resurface, and maybe I’ll hide behind her for a while!

September in the Auvergne

I spent the last few weeks keeping an indigo bath on the go – temperatures in the 30s definitely helped to prolong it. These pictures are a mixture of indigo and logwood on merino, alpaca, silk and one skein of linen.

The hedges looked pretty strange at times.

Made a good start on the cosy stuff as well – though it is always a bit weird to be working on winter items in 34 degrees.

Crescent scarves next on the list – need a stock of those because they seem to go down well as gifts.

Apparently I have entirely forgotten how to edit these posts – can’t even shift the images around any more. So, apologies – but if I mess around wasting any more time I know I will just delete the lot!

Soon be possible again?

Fontainebleau – and forest – last November. Just made it before the NEXT lot of travel restrictions kicked in.

After a very different Christmas dodging Covid (unsuccessfully, as it turned out in the end…) I can’t help feeling excited at the prospect of getting back to France again soon. But maybe this is premature. I’m enjoying being back at work but actually I still don’t feel anything like normal, so perhaps I’d better conserve energy for the moment – maybe some gentle spinning is on the cards!

Late December trees – and late again.

This time because it is hard to kick away the props. It was only ever supposed to be a set of 12 months, but I never imagined the role these trees would take on. But enough now. I will be back with pictures of the spring flowers if they ever do their thing – there are definitely some promising signs, and right through December, rather weirdly, there have been patches of violets flowering away in the patch we have appropriated for a memorial. Climate change?