Autumn day skywatch.

It's been a lovely autumn day with no rain or harsh wind. 

The moon appeared as clouds were forming

but in the morning the sun shone and the sky was blue.

Time to be outside doing a little leaf clearing.

The ash and chestnut trees are bare branched now

but the walnut tree has yet to drop most of it's leaves.

We've harvested a wonderful crop of nuts this year. 

(We don't always manage to beat the squirrels!)

There's a great deal of tidying up to be done in the garden.

Some shrubs have been cut back in the border,

 a continuation of last autumn's work.

The result is an enormous heap of material to burn.

The mistletoe balls are shaping up well on the apple trees.

At this time of year the sun is low and shadows long. The garden is shaded from the south by our neighbours' trees and our house also throws deep shade over flower borders and the gravel area. I would like to have every bit of sun that is going but I also like to have trees around me. Life's a compromise!

For Skywatch Friday.

While I was sleeping

While I was sleeping

a spider has spun

and the morning sun

lights delicate threads

from a picture on the wall

to the fruit bowl

and across a chasm,

gravity defying line,

to the back of a kitchen chair.

I stare in disbelief.

All this

while I was sleeping!

Skywatch Friday

I've just come across the Skywatch Friday blog. What a lovely idea, to see the sky from many different places in the world. My offering shows an extremely dull, wet  sky, utterly depressing. It will make many people pleased that they do not live in the south west of England in November! (Or, for that matter, in December, January, February, March...)

There's such a low level of light that it's difficult to appreciate the autumn colours.

The garden is looking utterly neglected, I haven't been able to do any work in it since the car crash.

A few brave blooms are still dotted about the garden

and there are plenty of berries, Does this mean that we are in for a hard winter?

By five o'clock I've done the  shopping for the weekend. It's dark and cold. Heavy rain is forecast followed by frost tomorrow morning. I think it might be wise to stay in the house and hibernate!

Fruit and flowers

We picked all the pears from the tree a couple of weeks ago and it's a good job because we seem to have had nothing but rain and high winds ever since. The fruit is all ripening at the same time and there are only so many that you can eat on a daily basis! Neighbours came to supper and I made a chocolate and pear tart crammed with as much fruit as possible.

And while I was about it I made an apple tart with the non-keeping dessert apples, sprinkled with pomegranate seeds.

I picked a few wind-blown flowers from the garden.

And my neighbours came with flowers. Salvias from Sally - I shall take cuttings.

Delicious orchids from Jane.

Then a bouquet arrived from the bank (as an apology for atrocious service!)

Who cares about the weather when the house is full of flowers!

What we saw

We did what we usually do in Venice, a lot of pleasurable and aimless wandering and a little specific viewing of favourite places and new events. We wandered over the wooden bridge to look at the collection of Venetian paintings in the Accademia.

And then along to Ca'Rezzonica to admire the Longhi paintings. It is the museum of the Venetian 18th century, housed in a handsome Baroque building with a beautiful ballroom, decorated ceilings and windows facing the Grand Canal. It's easy to imagine the life of the Rezzonica family living there in style in the eighteenth century.
From there we walked back over the bridge to look at a small temporary exhibition of African art

which was almost overshadowed by the beauty of the room in which it was displayed.

I like to see art in intimate, personal places and for this reason the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery is one of my favourite galleries in Venice.

What makes it so good is that it is art collected by one person, showing her area of interest and enthusiasm and in many cases still hung in the same position in her former home. I do wish that they had kept some furniture in place and a few plants to give the feeling that she had only just left the room.

There were such delicious things to see

enjoyable even for a woman on painkillers with an aching back and a thumping headache!

In the courtyard leading to the Grand Canal there is a Marini sculpture that always makes me smile.

 It causes many different  reactions in people that are as amusing as the sculpture itself!

Well, really!

We had the added bonus of seeing a temporary exhibition of fin de-Siecle Parisian avant-garde's paintings, drawings and prints - a real treat!

Lovely Vallotton prints

and other delights.

In 1867 the American consul in Venice, Dean Howells, described the month of October as,

 "the month of the Sunsets and of the English....  the party which fills the gondola with well-cushioned English middle age, ruddy English youth and substantial England baggage. We have learnt to know them all very well: the father and the mother sit upon the back seat, and their comely girls at the sides and the front. These girls have the honest cabbage-roses of English health upon their cheeks; they all wear little dowdy English hats, and invariable waterfalls of hair tumbling upon their broad English backs...."

'Dowdy little hats' - the cheek of the man! The well-cushioned parents and the comely girls are all now back in their respective homes, but we had a lovely time all together in Venice!