8th November 2025

 Times are quiet and dark, by dark I mean the way afternoons get darker and darker faster each day.  We wait for the 21st December when the turnaround happens and then once more we shall surge towards the light and growth.  I suspect that was why Xmas was devised a whole event of light and present giving.  I miss actually going to the garden centre near Chelmsford, the place sporting displays of coloured baubles and lifelike animals that clustered in unreal tableaus.  Books to read, candles to buy and tea to sit down to after you had saturated yourself with the gaudiness of the season.

It is 7.30 I hear music somewhere in the house, my daughter has been haunted over the last few days by a Melanie song, which I used to play when she was young.   Melanie did not have a very good voice but she had that raw energy of the day.  The song - 'Look what they've done to my song ma'  Finding it on YouTube, the next song is from 2009 and it is Peter Seeger and co singing 'This Land is My Land'. Obama sits in the audience.  Somewhat ironic  16 years later.

Knitting wise, having put down my needles for a few days, picked them up and knitted the second fingerless glove for myself. I have one in black and the other in grey.  This is because that at this time of year with black wool it is difficult to distinguish the stitches.  The black one caused me much frustration. I tried because Matilda wanted a pair but I thought to myself she will probably lose them anyway.  And the saga of my lost suitcase still haunts me.  Childish of course but I only used it once and then she went off to London with it.  Last time I asked she just waved her hand generally and answered - it's somewhere in London ;)

Lillie is back this weekend, she arrived late last night, there is of course a parade of the scouts in Todmorden on Sunday which is tomorrow for Remembrance Sunday.  I reckon she will be up for an OBE in 30 years time for service to the scouts.

One other thing, you may, or you may not know that Ted Hughes ex-wife Sylvia Plath is buried in Heptonstall.  Many people make a pilgrimage to her grave and at this moment it is covered in plants and looks respectable.  But there are some who have taken it on themselves to judge Hughes for the unhappy marriage and try to remove his name which appears next to Sylvias. All to no avail, because the name is recut again.  It is vandalism of course, as is the need to put your mark on someone else's history.

Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted

This also is written on her gravestone, it means resilience and hope and is taken from the Bhagavad-Gita.

The Calderstones in Liverpool