Bonfire Night...

Remember remember the fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason Should ever be forgot...

On the fifth of November, 1605 Guy Fawkes was caught with barrels of gunpowder in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament in London. He was hung drawn and quartered for his crimes; they hung him 'gently' so as not to break his neck, and then he had some organs removed while still living, before being thrown onto a fire with his co-conspirators. We choose to remember this gory punishment to this day with fireworks, and by heaving effigies of Guy Fawkes onto bonfires... English people seem to prefer celebrating the morbid and depressing, rather than the fun things in life!

Saying that, I love bonfire night. I couldn't get my head around being American or Canadian - fireworks mean that winter is here, they are for cold skies not warm; they must explode in icy darkness or they aren't proper. They must be watched while stamping your feet and cuddling your children for warmth. You must be longing to get as close as possible to the flickering heat of a huge bonfire, close enough for your eyes to feel dry and your face like crackling parchment.

I really enjoy stepping out into the night with the children clutching a hand each, and smelling the woodsmoke hanging low and thick in the air; nothing beats that smell, it's the smell of winter gardens, the smell that means roasting chestnuts and melting marshmallows and hot chocolate is nearby. The autumn leaves are being burned away to make way for the bleak, cold months, in a cacophony of colour and heat. I love to walk down the dark roads and see the street lights turned into indistinct dark amber orbs, and the sky glowing like a dust-storm at midday - orange and fierce.

Sometimes, depending on when we leave for the firework display, it's like a mass exodus - the wide dual carriageway is filled with people walking slowly, almost like an apocalyptic scene in a horror movie, or a peace march in the dark. Just as I start to enjoy the bizarre feeling, everyone pours inexorably towards the small park gates, and everything becomes squashed and a little flustery. We were early this year, and due to the torrential downpour that had soaked us to the very bones earlier in the day, not many people came...it was oddly quiet and personal.

Miranda was excited in her baby-backpack, not scared like I had feared, Theo and Sophia got a little bored waiting so my peanut butter cookies appeared and then disappeared faster than a flourish of sparkle in the night sky...

The fireworks painted delicate pink flowers, hot ruby volcanoes, sun-kissed dandelions, emerald explosions, gold glitter, sapphire cascades and sparkling rainbows onto the black canvas above our heads... we stared, mesmerised for twenty minutes, the cold and the need for the toilet all forgotten, and then suddenly it was all over.

The walk back home was a little reminiscent of a war movie - booms, bangs and whistles were ascending from front and back gardens along our route, and at one point a rocket exploded a little too close for comfort, sending showers of sparks everywhere, and we ended up scarpering down the street..... fun times!

Comfort...

The end of October and the beginning of November is a time of hustle and bustle and excitement, usually around this time; the short period nestled between the end of Halloween and Bonfire Night, I realise winter is on her way. The time has changed, mixing up internal body-clocks all over the country - darkness is suddenly descending on us an hour earlier than it should, and everything feels decidedly cold, bleak and wintery.

The walk to nursery with Sophia and Miranda has become a trundle through a wind tunnel of cold, brisk morning air. The sky is often slate grey and ominous; yesterday I lingered staring at the old sandstone building with a clock tower by the cemetery, it was lit beautifully by the sharp morning sunlight, and it sat against a background of the deepest darkest grey...I couldn't dawdle too long though, because recently we have been having miniature torrential downpours, they seem to originate from one singular cloud, all of sudden a surprise cold shower starts bouncing off the top of your head with enough force to make you gasp and run home. They're funny, because you can see a little way down the road that it isn't raining there, the water is falling in a forceful sheet over an area only a few streets long ... it's like being in a cartoon with a storm-cloud over my head!

When it gets like this all I want to do is get home, brew some tea, snuggle in my comfiest clothes and warmest, softest blanket and read a very good book. There's something quietly indulgent about silently sitting surrounded by blankets and cushions on a soft sofa while turning musty pages full of intrigue.... it's just perfect.

Some people hate mugs with a chip, but I love my giant china teacup, it's my ultimate comfort. I like to run my tongue along the chipped edge absent mindedly, and the cup itself is big enough to get me through several chapters while sipping the hot sweet contents and feeling like a princess reclining on a chaise longue next to a huge roaring open fire.

Autumn...

When the weather starts to grow cool and chill and the sky gazes down, icy and aloof, the leaves and trees seem to buckle under the pressure of the sky's stern stare and blush pink, then deep ruby and finally they start to glow red hot and crinkle in some unseen internal fire. The leaves offer us a dry golden heat that warms the biting air and makes the icy sky somehow less hostile. It is as if the heavens are lit up with little fluttering flames that dance to the ground for small excited children to jump and crunch upon their heatless fire... the youngsters join the dance of the autumn, adding a percussion of twig snaps and delighted shuffles, creating a beat for autumn's song.

The deep glassy lake acts as an eternal mirror, reflecting the fire, the ice, the queenly sky... as a breeze licks the surface of the pool the perfect image silently ripples and distorts, echoing the heat-haze of a forgotten summer's day. Leaves, like confetti, adorn the surface of the lake, their pattern, like cracked and decaying gold leaf on an old picture frame, forms an intricate crocheted blanket covering the dark water as it sleeps. Then a breeze tickles the surface once more, waking the ripples which move the fallen flames towards the shore, creating little glistening piles of gold, bloodstained rags.

It is impossible to be as soundless as the lake as you walk through a forest in autumn - stealth is not an option, the shuffle, crunch, snap of feet through the auburn detritus can be heard by the birds and squirrels, who scatter from our intrusion with peeps of alarm and flurries of soft grey pipe-cleaner tails. Silence comes with stillness; if you wait, perhaps sitting on a slowly rotting fallen tree, the creatures will creep and flutter back to branches and piles of parchment dry leaves to continue their frantic autumnal collections of softly decaying berries and the precarious mission of removing the needle spiked coats from hazel and chestnuts... sadly, as the chill air starts working its way within your gloves and shoes, nibbling your toes and biting your fingers, it's time to leave in a cloud of scattering wildlife, to go home, to the warm soft sofa, to watch the fiery dance of fall through the window.

Out All Night...

Sometimes getting ready is the best part of going out. Languishing in a warm bath with scented bubbles, one foot lazily dangling over the edge making a tap, tap, tap as the water drips off a toe. Everything slows down under water, the sounds of the house soften and wrinkle beneath the surface, the skin on my fingers follows suit and I know it's time to drag myself back to the snap of cold realism that lies beyond the bathroom.

Decorating...

New Wallpaper

It's been a long wait, getting to this point. Decorating either happens all at once in a flurry of activity and determination, or gets left for years whilst life gets in the way, at least it does for me!

Years ago a disastrous decision on my part meant that we levered the darkly stained wooden panels off the chimney breast - they creaked and moaned ominously and as they cracked free the plaster crumbled away and fell in heavy lumps to the floor, leaving naked bricks, worrying gaps and a red faced me!

When we stripped the horrific anaglypta wallpaper with concentric squares of wood-chip bumps from the walls of the front room we discovered cracked, aged plaster plaster beneath. It looked like dead, jaundiced skin - orange and crumbling, revival was not looking probable.

A few years later and here I am, allowing myself to daydream about colours and textures, making future plans for sofas and a floor, curtains, and a fancy lampshade... the deliberating over wallpaper took many samples and many weeks, the walls were covered in a cacophony of colour, sheets fluttering every time the door was opened. I get lost in thought, tumbling through my imagination, thinking about what a crew from one of those amazing makeover TV shows would do to our front room. Back down to Earth and the choice is made. Blue and brown, Soft mocha wallpaper with indented flowers; some cream with dark chocolate stems, some delicately shimmering.

I always loved sky blue, it fills me with a happy feeling. I could never understand why people say this shade of blue is cold and uninviting; it's the colour of the sky around us on a summer's day or fresh clear morning. It's the colour of the bubble in which we are kept safe from the chilling, lethal space beyond. It's a comforting shade, and now it's mine.

My New Cyclamen

I love cyclamen plants, if I were a plant I would be either a cyclamen or a rhododendron...

Cyclamen are bold, determined flowers. You can keep them root bound and forgotten on the corner of your windowsill throughout the summer months, while the other flowers bloom and have their fifteen minutes of fame, being admired by all who step into the garden, the cyclamen will stand steadfast and neglected in the deep green shadows of the windowsill, waiting for her moment.

As the other flowers dry out in the sun and crumble into a dust that flakes softly away in the breeze and their stems toast in the sunlight; golden brown and bent, the cyclamen gathers dust on her evergreen leaves, tastes a drop of water, and waits silently.

When the cold days sneak up on us, and we find ourselves one morning stepping into the ice cold bath of air outside the front door, our breath billowing clouds around our faces, and we realise as we walk to school that the leaves on the trees along the main road are tinged blood red, this, this is the cyclamen's moment. Secretly, when no one watches, she starts to push up strong green shoots towards the light...

By the next morning there are three tall, straight poles pointing triumphantly skywards from the cyclamen's ruffled leaves, and I remember to water her. By the next day there are more shoots, and the original three are crowned with light pink petals, coiled tightly into spiral teardrops, waiting to spring open with a splash of bold colour to light up the autumn grey.

If you dilly dally over the washing up sometimes you can catch a flower spring to life before your very eyes; a small, silent explosion of colour by the window. The cyclamen, so bold, so steadfast and determined gives birth to such delicate flowers; as I lift a child to peek at her favourite shades of pink, she touches a petal, it is instantly bruised and ruined... but the cyclamen is working tirelessly, gently pushing more and more curled spirals into the sky.

She will grace us with her silent fireworks throughout autumn and winter, then all traces of her stems and petals will disappear and she will step out of the lime light for spring; a modest beauty, too shy to compete in the flower show of summer.