Autumn walk 2020

At the end of October, I went for a walk along the stream near where we live, as I have every year since we moved to Basel. The second year, it was coincidence that I chose almost the same day for my walk, but since then I’ve made it a tradition. Now I am finally getting round to posting the photos from this year’s walk… only slightly too late!

We had such a dry summer and warm October that I’m not sure the trees had even noticed the change in season yet! There were quite a few brown leaves around, but most of those had turned brown during the hot, hot days of August. Many of the rest were still in their summer greenery. And others had given up entirely and were completely bare without having ever changed colour. Last year was pretty green as well, but I feel like there were a few other colours as well. But let’s have a look at the photos shall we?

And, for comparison, a photo from each of the years I’ve been doing this. The ones from 2017 and 2019 were taken in almost exactly the same spot, as were 2018 and 2020 (the 2020 one is a bit further back, but you can see the same curve in the path):

• 

  2015

• 

  2016

• 

  2017

• 

  2018

• 

  2019

• 

  2020

2015 was definitely the most orange – obviously Basel was bringing its best autumn colours for our first year here! Since then it’s been pretty green, although 2017 did a reasonable job with yellows. As temperatures continue to increase, I expect to see even more green as the years go by. Hopefully I’ll be around for a few more Octobers to find out!

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Autumn walk 2019

Every year since we moved to Basel I’ve gone for a walk at the end of October and taken photos of the autumn colours. The second year, it was pure coincidence that I took the photos on almost the same date, but since then I’ve done it on purpose…. what can I say, I like the direct comparison. This year I had to overcome a certain amount of reluctance to leave the house since it’s been raining for days*, but I gave myself a stern talking to (along the lines of “it’s only water” and “skin’s waterproof”), put on my raincoat and got out there.

(* I hope everyone who’s been wishing for this weather since mid-August is currently out stomping in puddles and singing in the rain… I would like to think that somebody is enjoying the fact that my time off work has been a complete washout so far!)

Anyway, enough rambling – here are this year’s (rather soggy) photos.

This year the trees are all either already bare or still green, with the occasional splash of yellow or brown here and there. None of the vivid reds and oranges I found in previous years. Also, apologies for any blurry spots on these photos – my lens got wet!

And now here’s the comparison of the same date on all five years (sadly not all the exact same stretch of path, but you get the idea).

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

The 2017 and 2019 photos are in basically the same place, so that’s nice. There’s definitely more green in the background this time! Hopefully next year I’ll be able to get out there again and continue the experiment.

Autumn walk 2018

Since we moved to Switzerland, I’ve gone out and taken photos along the same little stream at the same time every year. The first two times, it was a coincidence… I just happened to take photos of that particular walk on the same date both times. Last year it was on purpose, although I was a day out with the date. This year, I decided to do it again… having forgotten that I got the date wrong last year I again went out on 31st October. It was a far better day for a walk than the 30th though – although it was still grey and cold, it was the first time all week that it wasn’t absolutely chucking down!

The first year we lived here, I felt compelled to take photos because everything was so gloriously orange. This year, after a very dry summer, lots of the trees seemed to give up early, their colours fading and their leaves shrivelling and turning brown – some of them had even lost their leaves before autumn officially rolled around. I swear the tree by our balcony has been yellow and half bare for about 2 months! Then autumn dawned like a slightly cooler summer so that those trees that had hung on to their leaves thus far didn’t realise the season had actually changed and are either still green even now or just beginning to change. So what we’re left with is a slightly odd mix of bare branches, dry brown leaves, and bursts of red and yellow amongst otherwise fully green trees. But that’s enough waffling from me… take a look for yourselves:

Finally, here’s one photo from each of the four years. Sadly not taken in the exact same place, but I think it gives you an idea of the differences in colours. Hopefully I’ll be able to continue the experiment next year!

2015

2016

2017

2018

Autumn walk 2017

Around this time last year, I went for a walk along a stream near where I live. A year before that I had walked along the same stream and taken photos of the gorgeous autumn colours. It was only afterwards that I realised the photos had been taken on the same day. This year I wanted to take photos on the same day again, but unfortunately I misremembered the date and thought the others had been taken on 31st October. Actually, it was the 30th. Oh well…one day out is basically the same, right?

The trees have been weird this year with some of them changing from green to yellow then brown and finally losing most of their leaves all within a single weekend (a few weeks ago) while others are still looking very green even now. Two years ago I’m sure all the trees were red and yellow and orange at this stage? Anyway, here are some photos of this year’s autumn walk.

Leaving the house immediately proved worth it when I saw this guy mere minutes into my walk:

As you can see, it was an absolutely glorious day for a walk. Hard to believe it had been freezing cold and rainy just two days earlier!

And finally, here’s a comparison of this year with the autumns of the past two years:

2015

2016

2017

From left to right, the end of October 2015, 2016 and 2017. Unfortunately the photos weren’t taken in the exact same place/direction, but they are very close together and you definitely get an idea of how different the colours have been at the exact same time of year! I actually think last year was even greener… this year’s photo looks more yellow, while 2015 had all the orange. Now let’s hope we’re still here at this time next year so I can see what the colours are doing then!

Photo an hour: 19 November 2016

A slightly abbreviated photo an hour this time as I only took photos until 5 p.m.! We were at Jan’s mum’s birthday celebration for most of the day so at least there was something to photograph…

9 a.m. Reading while I wait for the shower to be free.

10 a.m. Getting ready to go. Do I have everything I need?

11 a.m. In the car. Snapshot of the view while moving.

12 noon. Almost time for the buffet. We were sitting in front of dessert so I took a photo of it.

Bonus noon photo! Inserting this to preserve symmetry later. My plate of food.

1 p.m. After the food, they brought out coffee.

2 p.m. The celebration took place in the cafeteria at Jan’s mum’s workplace, and after brunch we were given a tour. The photo was taken froom the roof terrace – pretty autumn colours!

3 p.m. When we got back to the cafeteria, cakes had appeared.

4 p.m. It took me another hour to actually fetch myself a piece of cake.

5 p.m. Admiring the table of gifts.

We arrived back at Jan’s dad’s house (where we were staying) at 5:55 p.m. so my 6 p.m. photo should have been taken there, but it felt weird taking random photos of somebody else’s house so 5 p.m. ended up being my last photo. The rest of the evening was spent watching Jan sort something out on his dad’s partner’s computer, eating more food (buffet leftovers that we had taken along) and drinking a beer.

How was your Saturday?

Autumn days…

We woke up on Saturday to rain, which continued for the rest of the weekend and is forecast to carry on until at least next Monday so I thought I would upload some photos I took a few weeks ago to remind myself that autumn can be nice when it tries.

Tinguely fountain

History museum in an old church

Petersplatz trees

Down by the river… Kaserne and Roche tower

Hello birdie!

Quack!

2016

All the photos were taken between the 16th and 30th of October, and it was actually not that easy to find signs of autumn! The first time I went out, the trees were still mostly green, and by the end of October a lot of them had lost their leaves completely… it seems they changed directly from green to brown this year. To prove my point, can we please just consider the following two photos, which were taken precisely one year apart along the same stretch of path (although sadly not in the exact same spot so we can’t get a direct comparison)

Apparently Basel used up its best colours last year to welcome us to our new country. I shall have to make a point of going out on the same date next year to see what the trees are doing then.

Happy new week, readers. I hope Monday is less grey and miserable where you are!

Friday letters

Oh, hey! So apparently it’s Friday already? This week has gone far too fast!

Let’s have some letters:

Dear trees. You’re so pretty right now! I love walking into my living room and seeing yellow beside the balcony, or looking out of my office window to see orange and red. Do you think you could maybe stay like that for while instead of rapidly going from colourful to naked? Thank you!

Dear birds. Now it’s getting colder, you can have some seeds again. Enjoy!

Dear Christmas. I see you lurking, but this year I shall be prepared! No stitching cards until midnight the night before we’re due to go away for a few days!

Dear November. You seem to be filling up rapidly. Visitors, Christmas markets, birthday celebrations. I feel tired already and you’re not even here yet! (It’s all fun stuff though, so no real complaints).

Dear bed. Let’s spend some quality time together this weekend, okay? (Despite going by in a flash, this week has also managed to seem like a lot of very long days and short nights. Time is a funny thing).

That’s all I’ve got today and I need to get back to work if I actually want to finish at my normal time tonight.

Have a fabulous weekend, bloggy friends!

Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival 2015

I’m aware I haven’t actually finished telling you about our holiday in England yet, but today I want to skip to what we did this weekend because the festival isn’t over yet and there might be people in the area who feel like going.

Each year, the castle in Ludwigsburg hosts a huge pumpkin festival in its gardens. A few bloggers went last year and it looked amazing, but sadly I wasn’t able to go then, so when Meredith wrote a blog post about this year’s event I was determined to make it there this time. From Karlsruhe, it would have been fairly easy to get to. This year we were further away, meaning the journey took us around 3 hours (changing trains twice), but we decided that was just about doable. Since we had to change trains in Karlsruhe, I asked whether any of my friends there would like to join us and two of them did.

Each year, there is a theme for the sculptures at the festival to fit into and this year’s was Fliegen, which mines flight. However, there were some interesting interpretations of the word, for instance one sculpture was of a grand piano, which is der Flügel in German… and Flügel is also the German word for wing (as in what birds have, not the wing of a house), giving it a (slightly contrived) connection to flight. Here are some of my favourite photos that I took of the sculptures. The smaller carved pumpkins aren’t part of the “main” exhibition and therefore don’t have to follow the flight theme (hence cows and snakes).

Angel or maybe Icarus?

These are “Fliegenpilze” in German

I managed to take my camera along without it’s memory card because I’m a moron 😉 Luckily I can actually take some photos with the camera’s own memory, but it meant I had to ration myself. Luckily my friend K took lots of photos, which she very kindly shared with me, so the next gallery is all her work.

As well as the sculptures, there were various culinary offerings involving pumpkin. We had roast pumpkin seeds – I bought ones with chilli and sugar while K chose sugar and cinnamon, pumpkin popcorn (boring – it was just ordinary sweet popcorn with crushed pumpkin seeds sprinkled on, and taste of just… popcorn), pumpkin burgers (amazing! Would eat again!), pumpkin chips/fries (also amazing! I plan to try and make my own), pumpkin Schorle (juice mixed with fizzy water) and pumpkin prosecco (“Kürbissecco”), and also sampled some of the items that were available to buy for taking home – including pumpkin seed pesto, pumpkin ketchup and pumpkin chutney. All were delicious!

As well as the sculptures, the entire place is decorated with pumpkins and the winners of the German and European giant pumpkin contests were also in display. Here are a few general impressions of the pumpkins, the park and the gorgeous autumn colours. First gallery contains my photos:

The castle

Fountain in the castle grounds

Baby boo pumpkins

Gorgeous colours!

Castle behind the trees

Figure in the fairytale garden

Giant pumpkin with normal sized pumpkin for scale

Someone’s puppy I took a sneaky photo of

Don’t feed it after midnight!

Gorgeous coloured trees

SO much autumn!

Castle

And the following photos are by K:

It’s so wee!

This pumpkin will slay vampires for you!

Pumpkin or pear?

The friendly ghost pumpkin

This pumpkin shall never be destroyed!

I went with an autumn look to match my surroundings

Sorry about the photo overload – I couldn’t narrow it down any further!

If anyone is in the Stuttgart/Ludwigsburg/Heidelberg area and wants to see the pumpkins for themselves, the festival is on until Saturday 8th November. The exhibition area is not lit, so I recommend going during the day/before dark. Entrance to the garden is €8.50 – and make sure you do ask for a ticket to just the garden, unless you actually want to go into the castle! Apart from the pumpkins, the garden itself has a lot to offer, including a huge walk in aviary (which we sadly didn’t have time to go into this time, but Jan and I have been before and it’s amazing!) and a fairytale forest.

Phew! That was a long post, so congratulations if you’ve made it to the end!
I’m linking this up for Monday Escapes with Packing my Suitcase and My Travel Monkey. Click the button for more information.

Friday letters

Another Friday already? Wow, that came around fast! Well, the good news is that by smothering my wrist in Deep Heat and strapping it up, I’ve managed to get it almost better, and stitching doesn’t hurt as long as the bandage is around it, so I’ve been busily stitching away trying to get the cross stitch for our little game finished and will hopefully get the reveal post up next week sometime (the things I do for you people. Honestly!). I’m not sure how much stitching will get done this weekend as Jan is singing at two concerts and we have visitors coming tomorrow to see one of them, then staying overnight, so this evening tidying must be done! I’ll try my best though. Anyway, letters…

Dear autumn colours. Why are you fading already? That’s not fair! I’m not ready for nasty brown leaves/naked trees yet!

Dear crumbs/dirt. Where do you come from? I’m so sick of hoovering you up! (Oh, and hair, could you maybe stop falling out all over the bathroom floor? Thanks!).

Dear decent hole punch. Where did you go?! I can only find my old, crappy one. You’re massive so why can’t I see you?

Dear fish fingers. Eating you makes me feel like I’m 8 again! Except these days you’re served with roast potatoes and salad rather than oven chips and baked beans…

Dear Sherlock. I can’t believe it – we’re actually up to date with a TV series! Now what am I going to do until Season 4 comes out?

That’s all for today. Not much is going on with me, apparently. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Friday letters

Is it just me or is autumn going by really fast? I know it’s only mid-October and officially autumn will last a while longer, but over the last few days it’s gone cold here and I can sense winter rearing its ugly head already! Oh well, at least the sun’s out today so I won’t have to force myself to go for a walk in the rain like I did yesterday. Anyway, letters…

Dear wrist. I’m not sure why you hurt (although holding the tablet seems to aggravate you so that could be a clue?), but you need to stop it. I have many cards to cross stitch and right now stitching for long stretches hurts!

Dear patterned tights. You know what would be nice? If your patterns actually went all the way up! When the end of my skirt/dress is reached and then there’s a block of plain black (or whatever) before the pattern starts looks really odd! And the dresses I wear aren’t that short… mostly.

Dear autumn leaves. You’re so pretty! I wish you weren’t all falling down already – although the trees in the courtyard outside my flat are still looking rather glorious in yellow and orange.

Dear birds. Now the cold is setting in, we’re planning on buying a feeder for our balcony very soon. I hope you’ll come and visit once we do!

Dear Sherlock. No wonder your seasons are so short – those episodes are long! You’re the reason I got nothing done between making tea and going to bed last night!

Dear old home. Sorry to hear you’ve lost your best Irish pub. Honestly, you move away and everything goes to pot 😉

Right, must get back to work now. Happy Friday and have a great weekend everyone!