November 2020

With this Calendar post we begin the six months that were really nothing to brag about. I took less photos than usually. I saw fewer new things. I talked to so few people (in person). I was in the pandemic funk and it started in November.

First, before autumn is done: The most wonderful autumn photo I’ve seen comes from Bonnie Rae at In Search of the Very. She posted it in her lovely post A Way Forward and kindly allowed me to repost it. Click on it and be transported to Bonnie’s post.

Photo: Bonnie Rae

So what was there in November last year? One trip to the Orbetello lagoon 15 minutes away where we buy groceries and look at birds – as long as we aren’t closed inside our municipality, which indeed happened later. The repeat of the lovely path across the fields – really pretty but a bit long for my aching feet. I was glad I took my hiking poles. Food. A new book! Bestia. Dying oleander. Did I mention birds?

And this year? The situation in Slovenia is terrible. Almost half of all tests end up positive. Wards are full. Doctors are burnt out. So what do you prefer, nothing or everything horrible at once?

Coincidentally, in my blogging memories there is only one entry for today. Since May 21st this year when I started to look back in this way in my daily blog posts, this has happened only once. There hasn’t been a single day without a single entry through my eight years of blogging yet but it’s coming up later in November.

Oh, another thing: If anybody can recommend an online tool for building my photo calendar (with five photos per month, one big, four smaller), I’m all ears. The end of year is coming.

Here are my twenty photos for last November and, unlike usually, the selection process was easy. But in December it will be even easier. And yet, and still, not bad as Novembers go.

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  Hi, bestia. Why do you never take this spot any more?

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  The Orbetello lagoon, part of nature reserve.

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  You tell me what kind of ducks these are other than pretty.

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  To the northern part of the lagoon.

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  Hey, bird, how’s it hanging? Which reminds me: I need a zoom lens for my new old camera, if I wish to take more photos like this.

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  Some sort of abandoned factory, by the looks of it. I’ve heard of some asbestos there so I don’t investigate. Flamingos in the back, but not really pink.

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  What RAF liked to hit in WW2.

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  In our supermarket: The photos I could be taking. The guy in the middle has been hiding from me completely. Not even a glimpse yet.

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  Instead, these are the photos I take.

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  The death of oleander blossoms.

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  Nutella cake by way of Nigella. Yum. (ADD-IT: Not Nigella’s cake but 3-Ingredient Nutella Fudge Cake. Find links to both recipes in the comments.)

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  That was a pretty walk.

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  The straight path connects the road where I parked and the sea. Maybe 2 km there and back.

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  I worry about letting bestia run. Hunters and boars, don’t know which is a bigger menace.

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  This power plant in Montalto di Castro was intended to be nuclear but the locals rebelled (before I arrived). Now it’s thermal but it’s rarely on.

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  Where I parked. There is so much nothing here.

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  Then the book arrived! One of my favourites, “The Way” by Slovenian alpinist, translated into Italian for amore to ask “But why are they climbing in the snow?”

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  “Who searches for a goal will remain empty when it is reached, but who finds the way will always carry the goal on the inside.”

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  Gratinated shell-shaped pasta with prosciutto cotto and cheese. It goes into the oven. Bestia is overseeing.

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  Like this. Yum.

Previous months of my Calendar 2020:

• January
• February
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October, part 1
• October, part 2

November in previous years:

• 2016
• 2017
• 2018
• 2019

This day in my blogging history

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  2015: The bee Thursday Door in Rome