Power to the people

Today’s picture shows autumn colour near Kenwood House in London.  It is another from my sister Mary’s morning walks.

November is starting very well and today was the third pleasant, warm day in a row.  The weather gods have kindly arranged for it to rain during the night if it is going to rain at all and the month so far is a great improvement on October.

Dropscone wasn’t available to take part in the morning pedal as he was having solar panels fitted to his garage roof.  The government, in a rare display of good sense, provides a feed in tariff subsidy to encourage the take up of this technology.  Of course it was too good to last and the they are taking the subsidy away just when it was beginning to work in establishing a vibrant solar industry.  Dropscone has just got in before the axe fell.  We are all going to go round to his house to try some of his free electricity.

I went out on the speedy bike by myself and rode in warm sunshine over Callister to Paddockhole.  Here is the view from the bridge without Dropscone intervening.

On this occasion, the wind which had been gently behind me on the way out, gained in strength as I pedalled home by way of Waterbeck and I had to try quite hard to squeeze my average up to 15 mph for the 25 mile trip.

When I got home, I found that a great scaffolding had been erected against our end wall.

This is part of the scheme to stop the rain coming into the house through the end wall during our not infrequent south westerly gales.  We don’t like to think what we will do if this doesn’t work.

While I had the camera in my hand, I took a picture to show the development of the new section of lawn.  It is progressing as well as I could hope.

I can assure you that two tone lawns are the latest thing in gardening fashion.

I don’t know whether they don’t get on with goldfinches or whether it is just the time of year but as the goldfinches visit the garden in greater numbers, the sparrows have faded away.  There are still some but nothing like the crowds we have had over the summer.

Two chaffinches wait for a goldfinch to nibble its full.

In the absence of sparrows, the garden is full of blue tits, coal tits and great tits

There are occasional visits from greenfinches

The weather is quite unseasonable and we are worried in case flowers think it is spring already and poke their heads up only to be clobbered by frost.    However, it has encouraged the yellow rose.

There is a frost forecast for Sunday night so I doubt whether it will be joined by its friend.

The red rose is still trying but it is in a shady spot for this time of year and is never without a raindrop even on a fine day.

I am struggling to come to terms with the dark evenings now the clock has gone back.  In the afternoon, I did some preparatory work on a searchable index for some 1864 maps of the parish for the Archive website and when I had finished, it was so dark that I thought it must be time for my evening meal.  It turned out to be only half past four so I had a cup of tea and a slice of toast instead.  I then spent and hour and a half mooching around waiting for it to be time for tea.

In the evening, I went to the Archive Centre with Jean and Sandy and we did a power of work between us.  A shorter than usual visit to the Douglas Hotel rounded off the day in traditional fashion.

I don’t have to go far to see some autumn colour.  This tree is just over our back fence in a neighbour’s garden.