Saturday 9th November - Memories

 We met up with the offsprings this morning and my word it was parky out there...

A couple of years ago I bought thermal lined trousers and today was certainly the day for them. We meet up for 'second breakfast', sitting at an outside table as usual, lovely in the summer, but 'challenging' once the colder weather has started.

Daughter gave me some little advance birthday presents, and so my birthday has started two weeks early! Some stitch markers, which I've been hankering after, and a pack of cards with lovely bird pictures on the court cards.

'What shall we play?'. None of us could remember the games properly; we'd forgotten how to play whist, the cards are too lovely to play 'spit', which I think is also called racing demon. Daughter dug out the rules for 'cheat' from the depths of  her memory, and also a game called 'Black Mariah', neither of which sounded as they would be conducive to family harmony. 

I've a book on games and pastimes somewhere which I'll look out for next time.

We used to meet up in the olden days (before covid) for a weekend of board games and we all miss those times.

It set me to going through old photos;

Was this last November? Or the year before?  I chalked words on the pavement every day.

This year isn't the only cold November. Here's the shed window in... 2018?

I can date this one; November 2016. We went out for lunch, and a walk, on my father’s wedding anniversary, the first one after my mother died at the beginning of the year. That day was remarkably cheerful, a celebration of her life, no doubt helped by the glorious weather and Autumn leaves.