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. 

in absentia

Yes I do see how Instagram lures

one away from the blog.

It's so breezy and bite-sized.

Even on a dodgy phone with a broken screen that has to be jabbed

multiple times in order to 'share',

it still wins hands down over the old computer for immediacy.

Mac struggles to load photos to Blogger in under an hour.

I have to take myself off to while away the time more profitably

and then completely lose my train of thought.

So in the absence of a coherent narrative,

I'm going for colour graduation,

because this autumn has been all about

the most spectacular colour changes

and dramatic skies.

Much to be thankful for.

Hold the front page

This Bank Holiday weekend delivered spring and early summer

all rolled into one glorious extravaganza.

The beach,

deserted and sandy for once, raked of its usual shingle layer.

Wisteria.

Rhododendrons.

Azaleas.

Other people's gardens,

open to the public under the National Garden Scheme.

Walks, with dodgy overgrown footpaths

and equally dodgy directions from an ancient guide book

but a bonus discovery

of an abandoned orchard, like a scene from The Secret Garden

with a mysterious gazebo in the middle of nowhere.

 Foliage colour to rival that of autumn

but with added zing and zest,

and finally, a rare treat, the handkerchief tree 

Davidia involucrata in flower

to wave us on our way home.