Stunning but chilly photo, Janus. It’s very mild here – should reach 13 C later today!
It was -1 this morning. We’re promised a sultry 3 C. Time to find a beach towel!
Thank you, Janus. Very photogenic. We have had an autumn of sorts here with sea fog filling the valleys
but we are now enjoying the Portuguese version of an Indian summer, known paradoxically as ‘St. Martin’s winter’ after São Martinho, whose feast day is 11th November and when everyone eats roast chestnuts and drinks beer and/or red wine.
OZ
But here, OZ, said saint is celebrated by eating duck. Thereby hangs a tail, feathered of course.
Arrers, we inherit your 13 later this week, less tax of course = 10.
Janus: Little Huns prance about the streets with paper lanterns. The adolescent variety with torches aflame. All enjoy bonfires a bit too much making it the second most terrifying day in Hunland. Only New Year’s Day is worse as hordes of very inebriated Huns have access to fireworks.
The truth appears to be that Bishop Morten akshully preferred geese! But these days ducks sre more accessible.
No wonder they all went a viking to England!
As yet we have not dipped below 45F mid 50s+ during the day, only just finished planting bulbs and lifting summer stuff. But it has been the wettest autumn ever! Rain nearly every day, fields flooded and the tundra swans are fishing for drowned worms months early.
These woodlands are well drained, with ditches dug yonks ago feeding a string of lakes. I can see their age because at two points the path that preceded the cart track crossed a ditch with the help of ginormous old glacial stones. How the locals shifted them into place, who knows? The cart track probably dated back to about 1850 when this house was built to accommodate the game-keeper and family. Horseback and shanks’ pony no longer cut it!
Sounds nice, how far are you from the shops etc? Do you get cut off in the winter? Before we moved into town 18 months ago we were only three miles from here but got cut off frequently, roads impassable, solid ice and no power for days at a time. Fortunately I was born in an area notorious for being cut off a couple of weeks at a time, which is why we had solid fuel central heating and a large supply of food laid in. I’ve done it all my life, enough to stock a six month siege here and all of 5 minutes from a supermarket! Can’t change the habits of a lifetime though!
We are 10 minutes drive into 2 local towns. Roads are cleared PDQ and our 400 m. ‘cart track’ is cleared by the forestry people, usually within a day.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Stunning but chilly photo, Janus. It’s very mild here – should reach 13 C later today!
It was -1 this morning. We’re promised a sultry 3 C. Time to find a beach towel!
Thank you, Janus. Very photogenic. We have had an autumn of sorts here with sea fog filling the valleys
but we are now enjoying the Portuguese version of an Indian summer, known paradoxically as ‘St. Martin’s winter’ after São Martinho, whose feast day is 11th November and when everyone eats roast chestnuts and drinks beer and/or red wine.
OZ
But here, OZ, said saint is celebrated by eating duck. Thereby hangs a tail, feathered of course.
Arrers, we inherit your 13 later this week, less tax of course = 10.
Janus: Little Huns prance about the streets with paper lanterns. The adolescent variety with torches aflame. All enjoy bonfires a bit too much making it the second most terrifying day in Hunland. Only New Year’s Day is worse as hordes of very inebriated Huns have access to fireworks.
The truth appears to be that Bishop Morten akshully preferred geese! But these days ducks sre more accessible.
No wonder they all went a viking to England!
As yet we have not dipped below 45F mid 50s+ during the day, only just finished planting bulbs and lifting summer stuff. But it has been the wettest autumn ever! Rain nearly every day, fields flooded and the tundra swans are fishing for drowned worms months early.
These woodlands are well drained, with ditches dug yonks ago feeding a string of lakes. I can see their age because at two points the path that preceded the cart track crossed a ditch with the help of ginormous old glacial stones. How the locals shifted them into place, who knows? The cart track probably dated back to about 1850 when this house was built to accommodate the game-keeper and family. Horseback and shanks’ pony no longer cut it!
Sounds nice, how far are you from the shops etc? Do you get cut off in the winter? Before we moved into town 18 months ago we were only three miles from here but got cut off frequently, roads impassable, solid ice and no power for days at a time. Fortunately I was born in an area notorious for being cut off a couple of weeks at a time, which is why we had solid fuel central heating and a large supply of food laid in. I’ve done it all my life, enough to stock a six month siege here and all of 5 minutes from a supermarket! Can’t change the habits of a lifetime though!
We are 10 minutes drive into 2 local towns. Roads are cleared PDQ and our 400 m. ‘cart track’ is cleared by the forestry people, usually within a day.