The Last Day of November

 

The air is crisp and a cold wind has been blowing lately.

A walk downtown in the early evening with a companion.

We wanted to eat roasted chestnuts and drink a goblet of mulled wine.

We stopped in the area of this church called St. François.

I did like the illuminated leaves against the dark blue sky.

There were still leaves on the surrounding trees, also illuminated by Christmas lights

which have now been installed across town.

Market day is one of my favourites.

I usually go on Saturdays, but occasionally on Wednesdays too.

When I was downtown, I passed by the barber's and saw this lovely scene.

I liked the striped capes and the smart barbers in black and white wearing waistcoats.

The young lady barber saw me with my camera behind the big glass window.

She smiled and put up the v-sign with her fingers! So friendly!

In my neighbourhood, I saw this elegant lady all in white

holding a very large Poinsettia plant and waiting to pay.

One day, I visited the lakeside village of St. Prex, in the Morges area.

The weather wasn't beautiful enough that day to take likeside pictures,

but I did love the village shop which sells cheese and also groceries.

I'll be returning to this lovely place on a sunny day.

My aroma-diffuser which changes colours constantly

 I made a collage of them here so that we may enjoy

some of them which I took in a darkened room.

Today, I'm diffusing Eucalyptus and it smells wonderful in my home!

As the trees have nearly lost all their leaves, I picked up the most beautiful

and took a picture of them. 

They were mostly from my own street, but the dark pink and green one

slightly to the right of the middle is a vine leaf picked up in the vineyards.

The title of this book in English is: 'A Rose and a Broom'.

I heard the author speaking on the news. He is a road sweeper who writes books.

He sounded really interesting so I decided to order his first book above.

You can listen to him talk HERE

in German, with English sub-titles.

You can also read about Michel Simonet in this article in English

***

As anyone who does crafting or handiwork knows, to make things for specific

events, we need to start well in advance.

This is some of my Christmas crochet. 

On the upper left is a partial view of a large table-top mandala 

which measures 50 cm across.

Can you see the heart shapes?

This collage shows smaller doilies.

The pattern at the top is called 'Christmas Rose Coaster'

I find it so pretty. I bought the pattern on Etsy.

"One of the reasons crochet is so relaxing is because it allows us to achieve mindfulness,

the state of being in which we are fully immersed in the present moment.

This gives the mind a much-needed break from worries about the past and future,

allowing the brain and body to both rejuvenate themselves."

Tomorrow is the first day of December

and I love to prepare seasonal decorations, both to give as gifts and to create

a festive atmosphere in my own home.

Do you have special decorations that you like to put up at this time of the year?

Autumn's Splendour

My daughter and I decided to visit the beautiful Arboretum in Aubonne

Many of the leaves were falling, but there were still  enough for us to .

enjoy the splendour of autumn.

I especially liked walking along the water.

We crossed a bridge which had beautiful and different scenes on either side.

We followed a pathway lined with trees.

The yellow arrows on the tree-trunk show us the way.

It was so quiet and beautiful and the air felt fresh and healthy after the town.

An opening in the trees revealed a pond with pretty evergreen reflections

in the water and burnished beech leaves overhead.

Don't you love shuffling through the crisp, fallen leaves?

We come to an open area on our path with orange-red trees brightening up the scene.

There's another pond

with beautiful reflections.

Those brightly coloured trees have unusual leaves 

which look more like pine needles.

Here is a close-up to see their structure.

(click on the photo so it will fill your screen)

This is the botanical name of the tree.

It's a type of Sequoia which comes from China.

We walked underneath a covered bridge before climbing higher to get a better view.

A Tulip Tree was already losing a lot of leaves

A water feature captured the water tumbling down a steep slope.

Capturing the flow of water.

One last look at the colourful Beech leaves before returning home. 

I think it would be lovely to visit this Arboretum again next spring! Don't you?

Nearer to home, some Cherry Tree Leaves still hang on to the branches.

Many of them have already fallen, like this beauty here.

I liked the contrast of the fresh white chrysanthemums against the fallen leaves.

The season is changing and the cold autumn winds have started to blow.

We shall soon be admiring bare tree silhouettes and maybe even a sprinkling of snow.

We often have a little snow in November.

I hope that autumn is wonderful where you live

and that you are able to go out for invigorating walks and fresh air.

It feels so good to come home again afterwards, 

make a warm drink after enjoying to the full the season we are in.

 

How to Enjoy November

Maple leaves

How can we enjoy the month of November?

We know it can be a month of dull weather, rain and wind.

Some of the things I really love to do in this month are

 Daily walks

 Getting into nature as often as possible

 Collecting colourful leaves to press

 Making hearty warming soups

Inventing new ways of capturing interesting images with my camera

(even when the weather confines me to the home).

Handiwork which means lots of colourful crochet for me!

Despite windy days and some rain, we have had some beautiful sunny days too

in this first week of November.

Walking fifteen minutes down to the park always lifts my spirits.

I see how the leaves have changed since last time I went.

The sun was illuminating the beech leaves in the late afternoon sunshine.

Maple leaves in different shades of orange

dancing against a background of evergreens.

A flowerbed of deep orange Chrysanthemums

with leaves falling from the Tulip Tree above.

Look how the Gingko Tree has turned golden since I last showed you

through the same archway.

I love the carpet of fallen leaves.

Another cascading branch of Maple leaves turning deeper shades of orange.

Walking back home, I noticed the lovely leaves on one of the trees in my street.

I picked several of them up from the ground to make a leaf collage.

Last Saturday, my daughter and I decided to go walking in the vineyards

because the weather was so fantastic.

The wind was blowing and it created pretty ruffles on the surface of the lake.

We started our walk on the steep slopes of a village called Chexbres

It stands at an altitude of 589 metres.

We walked along the vineyards above the lake and a view on the mountains

I never tire of these views, They change constantly according to the lighting.

There is already snow on the higher mountains.

Steep stone steps leading up to the vines.

Notice the red rose bush planted at the top.

The sun was right opposite me when I took this photo, 

but the vineyards are so lovely that I didn't mind that big white glare on the lake.

One of the small roads coming up the slopes.

Cars are not allowed here.

Vine leaves changing colour and illuminated by the sun.

We decided to do quite a long walk two villages further on

so that we could take the train back to our homes from there.

It was actually further than we thought and there were very steep parts

to walk uphill!

In the end, we walked 17.917 steps

which turned out to be 12.5 kilometres!

A nice flat part before the climb.

The last photo I took before the very steep part.

I think I was too tired to take more photos!

We had a leisurely drink on an outside terrace at the Auberge de Grandvaux

before catching the train.

What a wonderful outing with so much walking.

The Dahlia are still blooming on my balcony very prettily.

A close-up of one of my geraniums.

Don't you love the little star in the centre and that tiny curl on the petal on the right?

I finished my autumn colours crochet since my last blog entry.

I made a tabletop Mandala. 15cm in diameter.

The two smaller doilies are useful for a mug of hot drink

and my Essential Oil Vaporiser.

The colour of the autumn leaves was the inspiration for my choice of colours.

I may already have started a new crochet project in red, white and green!

I'm an early bird and I like to get up, make a hot herb tea, often peppermint,

light a candle and read.

You can see the Autumn Mandala in place on the small round table next to my couch.

I hope that you are finding lovely ways to enjoy this month of  November.