November Takes a Bow

A pink rose in my neighbourhood.

The first half of November was warm with blue skies

and many flowers continued blooming

for our greatest joy!

Leaves started to turn golden and orange and the red berries were plentiful

Falling leaves decorate the cars in my street

These Lantana flowers were still flowering down in the park.

The graceful white Cosmos too.

Probably one of the most beautiful leaves in the autumn

are the Maple, especially against the blue of the sky.

This tree is in my neighbourhood

The fallen leaves create a carpet of red and orange stars.

Some of them get caught in the fence

Golden leaves and generous blue skies for the month of November

I often pass a whole fence of Morning Glory blooms

when I walk home from the metro stop which brings me up away from the town centre.

American Oak leaves down in the park

right at the beginning of the month when the beech trees in the background

still had green leaves.

Now the autumn chrysanthemums have been planted and these were joined

by a fallen Tulip Tree leaf.

Pretty cloud formations dance in the sky

The wind coaxes them into different shapes continually

My daughter had her birthday at the end of October and she came to celebrate it

here at the beginning of November and we all ate birthday cake!

I made this one with dark chocolate and ground almonds.

I recently heard about something called Fika.

Fika is an important part of Swedish culture where people meet mid-morning,

or mid-afternoon for a 'fikarast' or 'fikapaus' for a coffee (or drink of one's choice)

with preferably a cinnamon bun, or something similar.

This was taken on November 7th, when I started crocheting squares

to make a winter blanket!

Here are some of the different stages

I chose the colours to represent frost and snow and snug winter days.

Can you recognize the squares that make you think of holly and red berries?

I hope to finish this blanket by mid-December.

I also crocheted some lightly stuffed hearts to give as gifts.

The pattern is called Sunburst Hearts and is from a pattern by Bunny Mummy

Since there will soon be no more flowers or colour in nature,

I wanted to end this blog entry with a collage of colour.

The days are still getting shorter and the temperatures are going down.

We'll soon be getting zero Celsius at night

and then there will be snow!

I hope that you're enjoying the season and using these long evenings for occupations

that you really enjoy!