Autumn Ramblings.
Aug. 29th, 2011 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magog_83I just searched for 'Autumn' on google images and OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS PICTURE. Look at the beautiful old building, the haze, the slightly golden quality of the light. I just want to climb inside and stay there forever <3 <3
For those who don't know this about me already, I love Autumn and Winter. Basically from 1st September until just after Christmas, I walk around with a dopey smile on my face imagining I am in a Keats poem. This is the very best time of year coming up now. Spring - wet, post Christmas comedown etc etc, Summer - I am hot and uncomfortable, then AUTUMN - blackberry picking, Guy Fawkes Night, Halloween, advent, CHRISTMAS and in between the Christmas fairs, carnivals, crisp frosty mornings and dark evenings with the fire on, period dramas on the telly and the leaves turning. Perfect :)
I need to find some Autumn icons...
For those who don't know this about me already, I love Autumn and Winter. Basically from 1st September until just after Christmas, I walk around with a dopey smile on my face imagining I am in a Keats poem. This is the very best time of year coming up now. Spring - wet, post Christmas comedown etc etc, Summer - I am hot and uncomfortable, then AUTUMN - blackberry picking, Guy Fawkes Night, Halloween, advent, CHRISTMAS and in between the Christmas fairs, carnivals, crisp frosty mornings and dark evenings with the fire on, period dramas on the telly and the leaves turning. Perfect :)
I need to find some Autumn icons...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 03:56 pm (UTC)It's my favorite season. Summer is starting to give up her fight down here and the shadows are getting longer and the mornings are actually pleasant and I'm just like COME ON FALL GET HERE.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-31 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 04:13 pm (UTC)Jim thought he'd possibly be in Swindon next month, but unfortunately he managed to troubleshoot and fix via email. I am bummed because I was going to go along for the ride.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:13 pm (UTC)Swindon??? I think you must mean another Swindon because the one near here is GRIM and has a giant evil roundabout of doom...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-31 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 04:17 pm (UTC)Doesn't this setting just beg for a story? *tries to throw a hint your way;)*
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:51 pm (UTC)In the village, they warned him not to go. No-one ever went to the cottages, they said, and they still called it that, ‘the cottages’, though there had been only one resident there in living memory. By all accounts it was the local haunted house, the forbidden place where only the bravest children dared peek, but only through trees and bushes, never close enough to be caught. Such strange noises people heard from the cottages, shouts and bangs and strange lights and plumes of smoke that rose high above the tree line. It was said that when the smoke rose highest and the bangs sounded clear across the woods, the villagers had bad dreams, waking to hazy memories of blood trampled in the dirt, and a melancholy that ached like old bones at the onset of winter.
No-one visited the cottages, and no-one from the cottages visited them, and that was how they liked it.
Arthur heard their whisperings as he set off but he did not heed them. Instead he followed the path from the village, tangled and overgrown with weeds and branches heavy with blackberries. The villagers did not touch them, but Arthur took one anyway, the sweet flavour bursting over his tongue as he tramped onwards in the mellowing sunlight of an autumn evening.
In time he came to it, a rickety gate half hidden among the hawthorn, bearing a crudely painted sign with the legend, KEEP OUT. I MEAN IT.
Arthur snorted and forced it open. The wood resisted him far more than was natural for its age and haphazard construction but Arthur had expected that. With a final grunt of effort, he was through, leaving the gate hanging forlornly on its hinges.
A short walk then, down a narrow path so wild it barely deserved the name, following the curve of a hidden brook that wound its way through the trees, the rush of water seeming to keep pace with his quickening steps. Then he was clear and the cottages lay before him, nothing like the foreboding ruins of village legend. Instead they were all sun-warmed stone, narrow gables and crooked chimneys, still and quiet but for the burbling stream, the faintest glow at the lattice windows hinting at light and warmth and a welcome within.
But not yet.
At his first firm knock on the door, there came a crash from inside, followed quickly by a bang and a stream of curses more than enough to frighten anyone who wasn’t Arthur. He knocked again and a window flew open above his head, to the shout of, “Go away, or I’ll send the goose after you.” Whereupon the window slammed shut again, shaking loose a cloud of dust from the casement that set Arthur coughing.
“Is that any way to talk to your King, Merlin?” he called when he had recovered, tilting his head to catch the slightest movement in the room above, squinting against the bright sun that blurred his vision and turned the gables into towers, silhouetted against the sky.
There followed a silence of the kind that came only once in centuries, when the world was about to tilt upon the opening of a door and the scene – of sunlight, worn stone and dust under boot soles – could be another time, and another place entirely.
Then there were footsteps, loud and swift on a staircase, the click of a latch and the protesting creak of a door as it was wrenched open. Then Merlin was there and the world came sharply into focus.
.....
It was said in the village that after the stranger went looking for the cottages the dreams stopped. This was not entirely true. There were still nights when strange lights could be seen dancing above the woods and on those nights the villagers still dreamed, but they were not bad dreams, not anymore.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 12:31 am (UTC)I'm also very fond of autumn. Usually here the skies are clear and blue and there is a smell of leaves falling and crisp apples and the last light of color in the air.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:22 pm (UTC)Cosiness is the BEST part of autumn. You have an excuse to wear your warm coat and your scarves and to put the heating on at night and wear comfy pyjamas.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:26 pm (UTC)I really need to get myself down the fields with a tub and get some blackberries, and before 11th October.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:41 pm (UTC)I've seen US style Halloween in films! It's huge over there, isn't it. I enjoyed Halloween far more when I was little and we'd have a party with my cousins and play bobbing for apples and 'wrap the mummy' and mum made jelly with jelly snakes in it :D
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 07:51 pm (UTC)... Hot and uncomfortable? :O I've been walking around in a coat all summer, freezing my butt off and envying my family who's enjoying lovely 30 - 35°C! (Alright, that may be a bit too hot for me too ... :D)
I wish I could share your enthusiasm for winter ... especially as we're heading towards it already again :/ But winter in Austria ... argh!
It's cold, cold, cold, cold, COLD! Did I mention cold? Which is pretty bad, because at uni there are practically no inside places where you can spend your time between classes - so I tend to spend a lot of money on hot chocolate in cafés :).
Plus, there's SO MUCH snow (often like waist high or even higher), leading to MASSIVE traffic jams (though not as bad as in Paris, apparently - well, we must get some advantage out of faceing the same massive amounts of snow every year in Austria)
On the plus side though, I love snuggling down with my hot cup of cocoa at the end of a day ... and who would dare say anything about Christmas? (Or Christmas markets, for that matter :)!) So I guess it's not all bad after all!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:48 pm (UTC)Also, I probably wouldn't want quite that much snow. Here we're excited for a few inches! But I bet the alps look amazing when they're all snowy, like a chocolate box <3 <3 And you have the BEST hot chocolate in Austria. Or at least they did in the hotel I stayed in. I've never tasted anything like it.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 11:19 pm (UTC)The alps do look amazing, which is why I love going skiing - that's my favourite part about winter, skiing down all those white, white slopes and just admiring the view. And then we'll go for a cup of hot chocolate in the hut :)!
Haha, maybe I'll send you some hot chocolate for your birthday then :D :D :D!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 03:01 am (UTC)I love fall. :) It's slowly cooling down over here. Although, that could mean snow in September again. Which I am cool with; I love winter too!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 01:03 pm (UTC)And autumn is really my favourite season, the nature in autumn is the most gorgeous - so many beautiful colours around :) I don't like the cold in winter and hate the summer heat, so autumn fits me quite well. And volcanoes in my town are really beautiful in autumn. God, I love our volcanoes!
thanks for the photo :)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 04:26 pm (UTC)I liked your little story...my image of the guard goose has put a smile on my face for awhile now.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-31 09:43 pm (UTC)I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who love autumn and winter the best! But apparently you're not allowed to like winter in Michigan. Even though it's such a gorgeous season here!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-25 02:11 am (UTC)Autumn and Winter are the best for beauty and nostalgia. It is also optimal for not sweating like a baboon, in most cases.