In the Cold November Rain

“My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.”
– Robert Frost, My November Guest

Leaves: clinging to near-naked branches, plastered to wet pavement, trapped in rows of green hedges, swept into piles on the side of the street, wedged between bikes parked in rows, floating through the air. Leaves, on this cold November day, were everywhere.

From under my umbrella, I photographed them in the rain, walking over slippery layers of yellow and brown, making my way around the lake in Bishop’s Park where ducks swam and children played despite the weather.

Wind whipped up against my neck, an Autumn chill. It blew the rain sideways, making tree bark glisten, pipes gush and dripping branches waver. Leaves coated a small area of the lake under a tree heavy with red-orange berries and a duck splashed about in the water.

It’s a season of soggy shoes, slippery sidewalks and 4pm sunsets, but to me it’s the most beautiful season. The colours are fiery, the nights cosy, the foggy mornings mysterious and there’s time for reflection, for warming tea and hearty vegetable soups and baking fresh bread while the rain runs down the window panes.

It’s a season for gratitude, country walks, earthy scents, pumpkin harvests and curling up with a books for hours on quiet Sunday afternoons. It’s a time for visits to apple orchards, cooking with cinnamon and cloves, and walking through the later sunrise on crispy golden mornings. It’s a season for indulging in nostalgia and small moments of creative melancholy.

It’s also a season for kicking off those wet shoes, shaking out that drenched umbrella, turning up the heating, putting the kettle on, finding the biscuit tin and a travel magazine to settle in for a bit before baking a pumpkin pie – which is exactly what I did next!