The Lane in November

I've been doing a bit of moon-thinking lately.
It was Karen over at Cornflower who started me off with her heading Gibbous Moon for her thoughts on Richard Burn's book A Dance for the Moon.
As they do, someone had asked in comments why 'gibbous'?
This then set me off on a little trail of Moonology type investigations.
I sort of knew what a gibbous moon was but not quite.
We've been witness to a brilliant full moon recently and wondrously clear starbright skies which with no light pollution we treat like our own private planetarium. Yes, we have been known to lie out in the garden and watch meteorite showers in mid-winter.
Everything has most certainly been illuminated and if my camera could only have captured the lane at midnight you would have been very impressed, but it's a bog-standard little Olympus thing that I point and press and night shots seem to be just an ask too far.
The lane in November is certainly looking a bit bleak and mud-coloured but a good deal neater for a visit from the hedge trimmer so I dug these out and off we went. You will notice I belong to the blue wellie brigade.

There's no point in trying to edit the pictures into something bright and cheery, this is how it is right now but somehow it still has that undeniable beauty.

 

as does Book Hound collecting his kindling as we walk, he just can't bear to look a free wooden gift horse in the mouth.
 

Hedge trimming has cut away all the deadwood revealing the holly awaiting its entrance patiently in the wings.A morsel of colour in the garden but not much from the...er...thingy plant...someone will diagnose it...is it Mahonia?
But here is Book Hound's favourite wood-pile corner now earning its keep and all that summer work paying off, it's his pride and joy in the true sense of another lovely Mary Azarian woodcut for which I'm convinced Bookhound posed. Mind you I have taken some responsibility for woodshed-raiding and fire-lighting in recent weeks and I think I'm getting almost as fond of it as he is. The logs just used to miraculously appear in the basket but now I realise someone has to go and get them. The day a rat jumps out I might become less fond of it, in fact unlikely to go near it for years, but for now I'm bonding quite nicely with the woodshed.