November has always been a month of grey and gold to me. A solemn month. Shedding cloaks of autumn, it settles into simple homespun and subdued colour. Closing into itself
Days shorter and nights darker. I am one of the few that enjoy November. I like the stillness and the winding down. A quiet month. Settling into new routines, preparing for the harsh months hovering so uncomfortably near.
November smells of cinnamon and pumpkin and earthy leaves and wood smoke. Sullen dove soft skies and breathless air. November is also wild storms and damp days, intense sunsets and stark blue skies. Winds that shear away remaining leaves and send them tumbling across the landscape. There is a restrained turbulence to the month of November. Come close and warm your hands by the fire….
“November–with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes–days full of a fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper-trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old Tom had built his roof well, and his chimney drew.” – L.M. Montgomery
