To the Lighthouse and other places

A quick injection of colour to kick start 

a long overdue entry

on this blackest of November days 

with the clocks well and truly back.

At the end of October,

we climbed the Old Lighthouse at Dungeness

and saw the beautiful mirrored light at the top.

I'm very keen on this fool's Fair Isle wool 

and have embarked on a third hooded jumper for a grandchild,

in a size large enough to show off the colour variations 

to better advantage.

By way of complete contrast I came upon

this very old cemetery while out on a mundane errand

and was swallowed up by a wholly unexpected wilderness

only yards from a busy and nondescript street in south London.

(not our dog)

A graveyard of a different kind,

for Citroen 2 CVs inexplicably abandoned

and left to decay

on the banks of the River Rother.

Pictures from a trip to Spitalfields' Fournier Street,

could so easily have been scenes of decay

but houses worth £4000 in the 60s fetch millions now.

 That is the spiral staircase inside the aforementioned lighthouse.

Quite a climb but the view was worth it.

(only part way up)

The Royal Academy is exhibiting Antony Gormley's work.
The final piece Host was this room flooded with sea water.
As with all the pieces, my greatest interest was in fathoming
how they got everything installed.

It has been windy today

but not as windy as Tokyo.

Our son arrived in time for one typhoon

and was an old hand four weeks later

for Typhoon Hagibis.

The sun shone brightly the next morning

and we slept a little more easily that night. 

Since we last met

I have mostly been

picking these - the box moth caterpillar

off the box hedges in our garden.

They have devastated them.

Stripped them to bare branches 

and then started gnawing on the branches

before abseiling off on silken threads to the next bush.

But we have made an impression

and after removing in excess of 5000

with tweezers,

new green leaves are sprouting.

No doubt these will feed the next generation of

caterpillars presently being laid by the caterpillars

that we didn't catch before they pupated.

But it wasn't all garden warfare.

We spent a week in the Malvern Hills,

staying at Perrycroft, a beautifully restored Voysey house 

with cottages for the workers holidaymakers.

We had free access to the main gardens

which were so perfect,

but we could not help shuddering at the thought of the havoc

that the box moth would  wreak on all the immaculate topiary

and we looked for telltale signs of browned leaves.

The hills were steep and numerous.

I think we yomped up all but one.

Going down was hard on the knees

but the views were worth it.

And then to my great surprise we learnt that the Hay Festival was on,

only an hour's drive away

and that there were still tickets to be had,

so we went to hear Kate Humble

and Monty Don and Derry Moore

talking about their latest books

Thinking on my Feet and Japanese Gardens respectively.

Summer is racing away,

but today has been like winter.

Dark by 3.30 and the heating is back on.

Welcome for gardeners and farmers

but very lowering to the spirit.

I made hot chocolate

and talked to my son in New York

about a trip to sunnier climes.