November - gearing up for the festive season

Time has been moving most peculiarly, bending, shifting, swelling and fading. The shift in seasons has happened in a drizzly blur- out of focus with only tiny glimmers of illumination from a passing gap in the rain clouds. Rain and glimmers have, of course, meant rainbows. Rainbows at any time or age are good for stopping and staring, an ideal pursuit this year while meeting the illimitable demands of the little one; I've been attempting to honour (read juggle) life as a still newish mother by living as much as one can in the present. This has sometimes looked like time lost staring at rainbows, but mostly, it has looked like letting many things go undone, unsaid, and unfinished.

a heap of crop to clear that lay unmoved for many many days, the nasturtiums just kept on flowering in the heap regardless

I have never lived so in the present, and yet so many of the little everyday moments I used to be present for now pass me by, my focus only allowing for sharpness when aimed at the now toddler hanging around my knees. What I have noticed and felt present for is the return of birdsong. The songbirds have started singing again this last month after what felt like a long, late moulting here. The garden was quiet, and then the robins returned with their solitary tunes, followed shortly by the sweet lilting cacophonies of the blue tits who have been cutting the cold air into ribbons as they chase each other through the holly bushes.

The mornings that aren't bound with rain are full of song that cuts through the gentle November mists. Rex and I spend the early morning walking the dogs to watch smoke rise off the meadow, as though the warmth of summer is being breathed out deep from within the earth. The woods are going through their changes. The unpicking of the thick green summer canopy was slow at first, just flecked with gold here and there, but now, it has succumbed to our true autumn turning ochre from the nightly concerts of cold. It is gaspingly beautiful, the tree line gilded in honey, red and russet- a thread or two of chartreuse and olive left in November's ever-changing, ever-more threadbare tapestry.

Now the cold is here, I have been more tired than I can remember. My mind is not as keen, my thoughts- fainter than I've ever known them. This will pass, and I hope it will soon. This season has been so busy and so rich and filling, and I've always thought my capacity was endless, but it turns out that breaks are necessary. You probably knew this already. But this has been a slow lesson for me, one I keep fighting. So this month, I've been taking breaks when needed, turning inward, going quiet, being with Rex, and recharging in whatever slips of time I can in time for Christmas, which is always the most joyful time of year in our calendar of events.

If you've followed along and read these notes for a while (a while being enough turns around the sun), you will know that I relish Christmas. I love the build-up of it, the way we bring bits of the wild into our homes to keep us company through the dark and cold. I love the arrival of winter and the bones of the trees finally being known again; I love marking the end of a busy season with the age-old tradition of weaving branches with boughs. Those moments of coming together to eat sweet things, to share stories from our lives, the smell of evergreens hanging in the cold air, and all the while, familiar to us all, well-worn, well-loved songs playing in the background - these festive vignettes never fail to make me feel human.

And on the field, Paris and I have cleared, composted, mulched, and sown. There's still much to do, but most of it is done, and our bodies can feel it all. The big storms have taken down the fences and arches, so once the coppicing season has begun here, we'll get to work mending, but only in February or perhaps March, when the ground is less likely to be frozen solid.

I hope it's been a good autumn for you. I hope you've had moments to marvel at the tree-line turn, the leaves fall, and the rainbows shine in the glittering rain.

Much love,

Milli x