The Field in November

By Sally Pudney on 14th November 2020

It was a beautiful sunny day here on Thursday, so I decided to make my November visit to the field. Blue sky with a few puffy clouds on the horizon, and bright low sunshine brought out all the colours in the trees and hedges as I walked down to the railway bridge.

This is the rickety wooden kissing gate that I go through, to walk down the side of a meadow where the cows grazed in the summer, and then over the railway bridge into my field.

The wind was making a wonderful noise like the sea in the mature oaks along the railway cutting. Most have completely turned an ochre-yellow bronze colour, but one had lost its leaves almost completely, and another was still green. Oak trees are individuals!

These are a couple more big oaks on the field boundary on the west of the field which were looking beautiful in the sun.

As I walked along the top of the field I saw both buzzards sail out of the big trees and work their way, circling and banking, over How Hill field. They were having to work quite hard in the strong wind, beating their great wings much more than they did in their lazy gliding summer flight.

Down at the bottom of the field it was really muddy! I was glad I’d reverted to Wellingtons and a walking pole, just as I used for the first three months of the year. Impressed in the mud I saw the deer hooves again, both large and small. Here is a large hoof print, with my foot to compare the size!

I found a second spindle tree in the hedge by the river, absolutely laden with its strange shocking pink seed pods, most of them high up on the sunny side of the hedge. I picked a couple of twigs within reach, and also some ivy with its own strange seeds and these will be my ‘snippings’ drawing this month.

Most of the vegetation has died down from the banks of the Roman River, and the trees along the bank are largely leafless. The river itself is visible again. It is really more of a stream than a river!

Other news: I’ve been very busy getting ready for my ‘on-line Open Studio’ week. ( I do wish I could do ‘real’ Open Studios . . .) I’ve been photographing all four of my Christmas cards, to go in the web-shop. The 2021 Calendars are already in there. Yesterday I collected two new mini-prints from my Maldon printers, Point Graphics.  They are both ‘railway’ based – maybe a good present for any railway enthusiasts in your family! I am also working hard to complete my four little Autumn paintings. So far Autumn in the Woods, Autumn in the Fields and Autumn by the River are all done, so just one more to go. As well as the original paintings which will be going up on my Gallery page soon, I am also having a new pack of cards made from them. All these new items will be going into the shop on Friday, 27th November, ready to start my week on Saturday 28th November. Of course, all the other items in the shop will also be available, so lots of prints, large and small, books, jute bags, postcards . . . And original paintings, too, on the Gallery pages. 

Look out for my Open Studios newsletter coming on Sunday, 22nd November, with all the details of the week. Still time to sign up to receive my newsletters if you don’t already. Go to the home page of my website, scroll down to the bottom, put your email in the box and click Subscribe – very easy!

I know some of you lovely blog readers in Wales will have just come out of lockdown, and many of us, in England, are still in it! Hope wherever you are that you are all well, and managing to just ‘keep doing the days!’ 🙂


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