Bouquet!

 

This splendid bouquet of Autumn flowers arrived on Monday morning while I was in my usual Zoom session with my siblings.  It was from Alex and Nadine to thank us for taking care of Nute in the wake of her operation.

It was a lovely surprise.  

Monday and Tuesday was an ongoing struggle to work out what blood pressure meds we are both supposed to be on. Either we are confused, the GPs are confused - or as seems more than likely, a bit of both. They are over-worked, and we are, well, youthily-challenged (in case the Thought Police have banned the word "old" and I haven't noticed).

We both still have colds, but are getting back into our routine slowly.  The bonfire is being built on The Green in readiness for Saturday night.  And I am happy to know that I am not the only one who loves Autumn.  See John Clare, below:

Autumn

John Clare

I love the fitfull gusts that shakes
 The casement all the day
And from the mossy elm tree takes
 The faded leaf away
Twirling it by the window-pane
With thousand others down the lane

I love to see the shaking twig
 Dance till the shut of eve
The sparrow on the cottage rig
 Whose chirp would make believe
That spring was just now flirting by
In summers lap with flowers to lie

I love to see the cottage smoke
 Curl upwards through the naked trees
The pigeons nestled round the coat
 On dull November days like these
The cock upon the dung-hill crowing
The mill sails on the heath a-going

The feather from the ravens breast
 Falls on the stubble lea
The acorns near the old crows nest
 Fall pattering down the tree
The grunting pigs that wait for all
Scramble and hurry where they fall

https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/poems-poetry-about-for-autumn-keats-frost-classic

I hope that when the time comes, Jehovah will wake the poet from the dreamless sleep of death and he will see this lovely earth again. Maybe John Clare will wake up in the full splendour of Autumn - an Autumn in paradise.  

The bonfire is now built, and enormous, and the fairground is set  up on The Green - I am looking at the sea through a ferris wheel today.  I hope they have a good weekend weatherwise. If so, the fair will be roaring away outside our windows tomorrow night, as fireworks explode.  What the gulls make of it all I don't know.  But quite possibly when they see the bonfire being built they know they are in for a noisy night.