Beyond the Bridge

Today is the 8th day since our clocks turned back an hour, and I am feeling the effects: a bit lethargic, a bit melancholy.  Suddenly we have turned the sharp corner toward winter.

October felt like a blind charge from the recent memory of summer.  And it was too rainy.  I finally made it to Tu Hwnt i'r Bont, the "internet famous" tea room in our own little Llanrwst, made out of a 15th century coach house.  Its name means Beyond the Bridge.  We picked up some buckeyes beneath the giant horse-chestnut tree, and the following Saturday Roan and I drank hot chocolate, read books in bed, and punctured our buckeyes and tied them through with string to make conkers.

But autumn is still here!  Early November on the Conwy coast is the height of color.

November feels like a month of dormancy; of rest after the harvest and Hallowtide.  Of turning inwards, into our warm glowing homes and our quiet inner thoughts, before the preparations of Advent.