For me, November can be a secretive month. It creeps in so quietly. Edging the last touch of autumn away as the year embraces the icy call of winter.
After the sugary bluster of Halloween, and the cruel turning back of the clocks, November is reflective and wistful. Seeds are stored, tools packed away and animals brought into their barns.
I brave the cold breeze in my slippers to fill peanut feeders so the garden birds and greedy squirrels can gorge themselves. I also leave a handful of dried mealworms for the fat hedgehog, who snuffles out from behind the shed for a treat as dusk falls.
I love it when fireworks start to fill the sky, miniature supernovae, and kids run around the street spelling their names with the fire-trace of sparklers. And as I head out to chuck myself round a gym class, I’m surrounded by a cloud of my own breath on the night air. For the cold is getting a grip on the wind now, trees have relinquished the last of their leaves, and a first frost marks front gardens with a twinkle of crystals.
I’m summer’s child and flourish best in the sun, so with winter’s approach I feel a sense of loss, and a dip in my mood. As the darkness closes in I get the urge to make hot chocolate for comfort, and to wrap myself in my duvet with a frown.
Yet there is a joy in the first wearing of winter boots and a snug coat to face the weather when I go out for a walk with loved ones.
Then I’ll come home refreshed and maybe pick up that book I meant to read. A thriller perhaps, set in an even colder place with stranger customs, where the nights are much longer than our own and they get proper snow.
For those of us who have served or have family who served, Remembrance Sunday marks a day of particular reflection. People wear poppies and give pause to those who did not grow old as we grow old. We honour those who gave their lives. We give them two minutes’ silence. No mean feat with today’s noise and distractions. Thank you, we may whisper, we will remember you. And we’ll wonder how it feels to hear the silence when the guns stop firing. The relief to know that after war, there comes peace.
As I finally accept the year is winding down, and the madness of winter’s big festival is not yet here, I realise November is a good time to look back over the year. To reflect on what went well, what didn’t, and what I’m grateful for. It’s a reminder to enjoy simple things, appreciate the calm, and get ready for whatever comes next…