Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness... Hello Autumn!

Morning in the forest

 Hello readers, and welcome back to the Labyrinth after our summer break.  Dori and I have had an interesting couple of months with lots of things going on, and never enough time to do everything, as usual...  Dori has been working on writing her first novel, and I've been busy decorating the house, sewing costumes, knitting scarves and cowls and being wardrobe mistress and general dogsbody for my daughter's film shoot in Scotland.  It's been fun!  More about those things in forthcoming posts, though...

Today, here in England, it is officially the first day of autumn, marked by the autumn equinox ('equal night'), which means the period at which day and night are of equal length.  This definition is, however, not quite so clear cut, as you can read in this article published yesterday (22nd September 2014) by Hannah Osborne in the International Business Times.

Where I live, in the far west of England, autumn has crept in over the last couple of weeks.  The nights and mornings have become much colder, the leaves are starting to lose their summer green and the beautiful burnished colours that the forest rewards us with at this time of year are starting to show.

 

 

My lime green Acer has turned. Such wonderful colours!

 

 

 

    So, the 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' that Keats so beautifully portrays in his 'Ode to Autumn' is definitely here, despite what the weather forecasters may say about warm weather continuing into October.  Autumn just has a certain feel about it, don't you think?  That touch of chill dampness in the air and the smell of woodsmoke from woodburners or the occasional bonfire...  Everything looks brighter and richer, berries are starting to weigh down the branches of trees, and soon, as the nights draw in and the temperature drops, what can be better than to curl up with a good book in a comfy armchair in front of the fire?  Not forgetting a steaming cup of hot chocolate either!  This is definitely my favourite time of year...

If you'd like to read Keats's poem, you can view it here at allpoetry.com.  You can also listen to the talented Ben Wishaw reading the poem via the YouTube video below.

Has autumn started where you are?  We'd love to hear from you, and you can write us in the comments section below.

Arts and Culture : Graduation Day at the Barbican

Hi everyone, and a very Happy Saturday to you all.

I'm REALLY excited today, as I'm graduating this afternoon after four wonderful years of study!  I live in the far west of England, but chose to graduate at the Barbican in London, as I'm from London originally, my close family still live there, and it makes for a great day out.  A weekend away is always a bonus, too.  I remember going to a classical music concert at the Barbican when my husband and I were first dating, but that was years ago (Okay, not that long!), and I hadn't realised what a fascinating place it is.  I thought it might be interesting to show you a little about it, and, if you like, they have a dedicated YouTube channel where you can watch more of what goes on there.

Arts and Culture : The Power of Film

Many people talk about the power of film, and I was struck by this ‘power’ just last week whilst watching Paul Greengrass’s magnificent ‘Captain Phillips’.  Based on the true story of the hijacking of Captain Phillips’ ship off the coast of Somalia, the film is a thriller with tension levels off the scale.  Tom Hanks, in the title role, gives a phenomenal performance and Barkhad Abdi’s portrayal of Muse, the Somali pirate captain, was so good he won this year’s BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor – pretty amazing, as this was his first film role.
As a family, we felt we’d all been on a journey through watching this film.  We were all completely immersed by its tension and characters.  We talked afterwards about what made it such a ‘good’ film, and here are some of our responses:

The Creative Maze

Val      

Hello there.  Today Dori and I are launching the ‘Creative Maze’ – you know, that monster I hinted at yesterday that has gobbled up our alternate Friday challenge posts?  This ‘monster’ evolved through one of our many Skype meets, where we were discussing our challenges and the way we deal with and present them to you.  We felt you might get bored if our individual challenges didn’t show any major progress, and that updating every two weeks didn’t allow enough time for either of us to make any great leaps forward.  Now, this isn’t a cop-out and we’re not shutting down our challenges.  We’re just going to extend the time between our challenge posts, and we think it will be better to update you with our piano/knitting progress in a joint post once a month on the last Friday of the month from now on.  You can see we’ve kicked this off today with an update from both of us. 

I’ve uploaded two new videos to our Labyrinthus XXI YouTube channel – one of me playing a simple tune (but one I couldn’t have played before this challenge), and one of my daughter playing ‘Arriety’s song’, a really pretty piece of music.  She’s only been playing for three years, and I hope I can learn to play as well as she does.  You can watch the embedded videos at the end of this post, or view through YouTube, if you like.

Challenge: Learning to Play the Piano #4

Hi again, and welcome to the piano challenge.  Things have changed a little since my last post two weeks ago.  I found myself becoming very bored with the tuition book I was using – it seemed to be all reading and theory, and , well...  I was bored, found myself not wanting to do it and, subsequently, I was getting nowhere.  So, I changed tack.  I picked up my daughter’s first piano book, Piano Time by Pauline Hall (Oxford University Press, 2004), and have spent the odd half-hour here and there over the last fortnight working through the book.  So far, I’m up to page 15, and Au clair de la lune, and can already combine the left and right hand (which feels like you’re splitting your brain in half!), read the music more readily and I feel excited about learning to play.  It doesn’t feel like a chore or an academic exercise now, and I can’t wait to move on to the next stage.