There's nothing like the sun as the year dies,
Kind as it can be, this world being made so,
To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,
To all things that it touches except snow,
Whether on mountain side or street of town.
The south wall warms me: November has begun,
Yet never shone the sun as fair as now
While the sweet last-left damsons from the bough
With spangles of the morning's storm drop down
Because the starling shakes it, whistling what
Once swallows sang. But I have not forgot
That there is nothing, too, like March's sun,
Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's,
Or January's, or February's, great days:
And August, September, October, and December
Have equal days, all different from November.
No day of any month but I have said —
Or, if I could live long enough, should say —
"There's nothing like the sun that shines to-day."
There's nothing like the sun till we are dead.
Edward Thomas.
Edward Thomas challenged his melancholy by getting out of doors, with friends such as Robert Frost but often enough alone. November sun in England, especially against a south wall, or south cliff, is noticeably warming.
Mid-November last year we went walking and foraged damsons, sweeter than they would have been a month earlier, but recorded that in prose, not poetry.
‘There’s nothing like the sun till we are dead’, and then? Why then we shall learn who the sun is like.
And there shall be no night there;
and they need no candle, neither light of the sun;
for the Lord God giveth them light:
and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Revelation 22:5.
It has been dark all day! This hydrangea is giving its all. By the end of the week she’ll have stripped for winter, but not before a defiant, final, fiery display.
She’ll be going in the ground come the Spring. At present her spot is growing mustard as a green manure and weed inhibitor. No way were we going to plant in among the tangles of ground elder and nettle, or the dandelion tap roots. They have their place … but not just here.
Not a megacity, but it’s home ground for our family. The first two pictures show the carpet of cherry leaves near the house we moved into when we came to Canterbury. I was walking by in the afternoon sun. On the return journey, having bought Manchester beer for Mrs Turnstone’s brother, visiting next week, I walked along a stretch of 1830 railway embankment. If it hadn’t been closed down after the Second World War, it would be very busy with people going to and from Whitstable for work and education, not to mention the seaside. Instead a pleasant walk under the trees, with always a chance of seeing a fox – if they are not spooked by teenage boys, released from school and chatting near one of the foxes’ crossing points.
The ancient Blean Wood is behind the young growth and scrub here.
Barriers and ‘Road Closed’ signs gloated across the big roundabout, cutting us off from our intended walk. ‘We could go to Victory Wood’, suggested Mrs Turnstone, so we did.
Trees growing where once was farmland – but before that, for thousands of years, there were trees.
The Woodland Trust began planting Victory Wood in 2005 before many of us had realised how urgently we need to increase our forest cover in England. 2005 is 200 years since the battle of Trafalgar, when Admiral Nelson, on board HMS Victory, defeated the French and Spanish navies. Victory, like all ships of the line in those days, was constructed chiefly from English, even Kentish Oak. There was good money for timber, and landowners did not always replace felled trees.
The sea, in the background here, transported thousands of oaks to Chatham Naval Yards from this site.
Much of the land we walked today had been cleared for agriculture post 1945, but 60 years later it was being returned to its natural state, a process that continues as staff and volunteers monitor the growth of different species.
A ladybird was basking in the November sunshine.And a pretty crab apple caught the eye.
Summer is gone with all its roses,
Its sun and perfumes and sweet flowers,
Its warm air and refreshing showers:
And even Autumn closes.
Yea, Autumn's chilly self is going,
And winter comes which is yet colder;
Each day the hoar-frost waxes bolder,
And the last buds cease blowing.
From Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress, and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti.
There were more frosts and more intense cold in Christina Rossetti’s time. Nevertheless, we have had the first hoar frost of this winter, those last dahlia buds look unlikely to flower; the tents along Canterbury High Street we hope are keeping people safe, and warmer than otherwise they would be, until the shelter opens next month.
Will Turnstone 