The Autumn Leaves.

Posted on 25/11/2018 By Bertie

The Autumn Leaves.

The rain thundered down at Sutton United and we hid in the stand. Driving home on flooded roads, we knew that this was the beginning of the end of a glorious autumn. The best we could ever remember. The best that is since last year. Especially the Autumn Leaves.

Living in the Surrey Hills is very special, but none more so when bonfire night is gone. Thoughts of Christmas avoided…! And the spectacle of so many places within walking distance of Laurel Cottage ablaze for that brief period when autumn turns the countryside golden.

This story is for posterity. For it’s also the time of remembrance and reflection. Bobby and Diddley loved Eva Cassidy …. “discovered” on Radio 2 by Terry Wogan back in 1998. Most poignantly since her popularity came after she had died at just 33.

Here she is, singing “The Autumn Leaves”, followed by the slideshow of autumn:

Slideshow

Please enjoy our slideshow, starting at Laurel Cottage and including: Tyrrells Wood/Nower Wood near Headley, Dorking Bypass, Wisley Gardens, Abinger Roughs and on and on until we reach London. The plane trees of Islington. The Imperial War Museum and two Cathedrals, St Paul’s and Southwark. Somewhere along the way some Belted Galloway cows on Denbies Hillside… and me all over the front of Laurel Cottage!

Autumn

I love the fitfull gusts that shakes
The casement all the day
And from the mossy elm tree takes
The faded leaf away
Twirling it by the window-pane
With thousand others down the lane

I love to see the shaking twig
Dance till the shut of eve
The sparrow on the cottage rig
Whose chirp would make believe
That spring was just now flirting by
In summer’s lap with flowers to lie

I love to see the cottage smoke
Curl upwards through the naked trees
The pigeons nestled round the coat
On dull November days like these
The cock upon the dung-hill crowing
The mill sails on the heath a-going

The feather from the raven’s breast
Falls on the stubble lea
The acorns near the old crow’s nest
Fall pattering down the tree
The grunting pigs that wait for all
Scramble and hurry where they fall.

John Clare

Lighting a Candle for Diddley.

Yves Montand

When we research the music for Mindfully Bertie, we find absolute gems that would have stayed hidden forever had we not been looking. This is the original of Eva’s version above and we can’t stop playing it. Spoken and sung as only a Frenchman can. It started life as Les Feuilles Mortes (The Dead Leaves}. With English lyrics by Johnny Mercer it became Autumn Leaves and since sung by many of the most famous singers of all time. And yet we can sense Leonard Cohen here. I am sure Diddley would.

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Gardens • Laurel Cottage • Wisley     autumn leaves

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