quietly creating

In half an hour I will have gained an hour. This is a blessing. Because I have wasted so many hours in the hours that were September, October and now November. Between the faltering, there have been hours of extreme busyness. With work mostly, but also getting the garden ready for winter.

The sketchbook has been mostly constant – a place to quickly record the extra long season of blooming Papaver somniferum and sweet peas (the former: unexpected, the latter: reliably expected.) The seemingly discontinued Staedtler 432 M orange ballpoint stick pen is running out of ink – I never intended to have so many orange flowers. Nevertheless, a welcome volunteer marigold bloomed just in time to gift me some seeds for next growing season and after a few years hiatus, I again had success with nasturtiums. Lastly, the ‘Bright Lights’ Cosmos creates a lovely orange stain on paper. I collected seeds from that too and look forward to adding more of this to the garden to brighten hard to grow spots.

Below, my sketchbook entries for September to November 4:

_{Sketchbook entries, September-November 2023. Pen and Ink. B. Wanhill}