“...December's wintery breath is already clouding the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer's memory...”

― John Geddes

 

(not quite December but this quote was so fitting for this very frosty morning!)

 

 

Photo by me.

 

 

 

“She had always lived her best life in dreams. She knew no greater pleasure than that moment of passage into the other place, when her limbs grew warm and heavy and the sparkling darkness behind her lids became ordered and doors opened; when conscious thought grew owl's wings and talons and became other than conscious.” 

― John Crowley, Little, Big

 

 

Photo by me. It's not a manip, it really was exactly like that!

 

Love is like wildflowers.  It's often found in the most unlikely places.

 

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

The following is an animation so please give it time to load, thanks.

 

Photo and animation by me.

 

Real obstacles don't take you in circles. They can be overcome. Invented ones are like a maze.

- Barbara Sher

 

 

 

Photo taken and edited by me.



“Curiosity is more important than knowledge.”

 
― Albert Einstein

 

 

Photo by me.

 

"The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will the dormouse do then,
Poor thing?
Roll'd up like a ball,
In his nest snug and small,
He'll sleep till warm weather comes in,
Poor thing.

- Traditional ballad, The North Wind Doth Blow  

 

 

Photo by me (not quite a dormouse but a teeny tiny mouse I rescued from

the neighbour's cat!).

 

[Describing the ballet of the Red Shoes]
Boris Lermontov: "The Ballet of The Red Shoes" is from a fairy tale by Hans Andersen. It is the story of a young girl who is devoured with an ambition to attend a dance in a pair of Red Shoes. She gets the shoes and goes to the dance. For a time, all goes well and she is very happy. At the end of the evening she is tired and wants to go home, but the Red Shoes are not tired. In fact, the Red Shoes are never tired. They dance her out into the street, they dance her over the mountains and valleys, through fields and forests, through night and day. Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the Red Shoes go on.
Julian Craster: What happens in the end?
Boris Lermontov: Oh, in the end, she dies.

 

 

 

Photo by me.

 

 

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.” 

― Robert A. Heinlein

 

 

Photo by me - Hugo (RIP) and Buffy, my

inlaw's cats.

"We don't have an eternity to realize our dreams, only the time we are here."

- Susan Taylor

 

Photo by me.

 

"Autumn is a season followed immediately by looking forward to Spring."
- Anonymous

 

 

Photo by me.

 

“The key of persistence opens all doors closed by resistence ”

 
― John Di Lemme

 

 

Photo by me (using mirrors to give the effect of infinity!)

 

“Many never realize they always had the key in their pocket, so they die at the locked door, never reaching deep inside to pull it out.”

― Anthony Liccione

 

 

Photo by me.

 

Frodo:
I wish the ring had never come to me.
I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf:
So do all who live to see such times.
But that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do
with the time that is given to us.

 

 

 

Photo by me.

"Two sounds of autumn are unmistakable, the hurrying rustle of crisp leaves blown along the street or road by a gusty wind, and the gabble of a flock of migrating geese. Both are warnings of chill days ahead, fireside and topcoat weather."

- Hal Borland

 

 

Photo by me.

 

"Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires."  

- Charles Caleb Colton

 

 

Photo by me.

"We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams."

- Jeremy Irons

 

 

Photo and editing by me.

 

"Walked for half an hour in the garden. A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant mountains - a melancholy nature. The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief. A brood of chattering birds were chasing each other through the shrubberies, and playing games among the branches, like a knot of hiding schoolboys. Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail."

- Henri Frederic Amiel

 

 

Photo by me.

"How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun.

At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Twisting, turning through the air
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.
Exhausted, drop to earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow."

- Elsie N. Brady, Leaves

 

 

Photo by me.

 

Everything begins and ends, at exactly the right time and place...

 - Picnic At Hanging Rock

 

Photo from the movie 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'.

 

"Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul."

 

 ~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

 

 

Photo of me, by me.

 

“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”

- Robert Louis Stevenson

 

 

Photo and editing by me.

 

“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”

 - James Dean

 

 

 

Victorian photo not taken by me (obviously!) but owned and edited by me.

 

"To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour..."

 - William Blake

 

 

Photo by me.

 

“Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.”

 - Harvey MacKay

 

 

Photo by me (Victorian pocket watch).

 

“All of life is a journey. Which paths we take, what we look back on, and what we look forward to is up to us. We determine our destination, what kind of road we will take to get there, and how happy we are when we get there.”

 

(author unknown to me)

 

 

Photo and editing by me.

 

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.

~William Hazlitt

 

 

 

Photo by me (Victorian photo album).

 

Do not fear to hope,
for every time we smell the autumn's dying scent,
we know the primrose time will come again.

- Samuel Coleridge

 

Photo by me.