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Gallery: a November selection (2025)

December 2, 2025 / 37 Comments

No sun — no moon!

No morn — no noon —

No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day.

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member —

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! —

November!

Thomas Hood, November

Thomas Hood sums up perfectly the reason why I am less than keen on November. The weather is rarely pleasant, though we did get a couple of crisp sunny days. I have to admit though that we still had plenty of autumn leaves on many of the trees though most are now bare. And there were even quite a lot of flowers, at least until the first frost bit.

Right at the start of the month we were in Florence, a surprise destination booked by my husband to celebrate my birthday at the end of October. It was one of those milestone ones that become less welcome as the decades pass, so it was lovely to explore a city I’d long wanted to visit as a much-appreciated distraction! I’ve sneaked in four end of October shots to my slideshow as I wasn’t able to include them last month. The Florence images I’ve chosen are favourites that probably won’t appear in any of my other posts about the trip.

Home pleasures

We were at home for most of the remainder of the month, apart from a weekend in Newcastle where a friend was celebrating the same milestone with a party for family and friends. At home we enjoyed our usual mix of cinema visits and meals out, including a special Michelin-starred lunch as an extra birthday celebration. The films we saw this month were a mixed bunch. Bugonia was decidedly strange and not as innovative or interesting as Poor Things, I felt, but still a good watch. Nuremburg we both thought was outstanding; I would say one of the best films we’ve seen recently. And Blue Moon was also excellent.

Another very good evening was spent at the Barbican Centre where we saw Don McCullin in an event to mark his 90th birthday. I hope I’m as sharp as he was in twenty years time!

On one very wet Monday we went down to Canterbury to meet up with my blogging friends Phil and Michaela, aka the Hungry Travellers. They showed us around the city, which looked lovely despite the rain, but I took very few photos. To be honest we spent more time chatting in several of the city’s pubs than we did exploring! We will have to go back …

I spent an interesting evening with my photo group at the house of a member who has his own home studio. We learned a bit about lighting from him and had a go at photographing each other.

I also continued to enjoy my U3A activities. My table tennis is improving, but so is that of everyone else in the group! I went to a second meeting of the art history course, and even joined a juggling group, which looks like being fun.

Finally, I’ve thrown in a last, belated November Shadow Square for Becky. See if you can spot it!

Technical notes

Most of the shots in Florence were taken with my Lumix point and shoot camera, as I prefer its lighter weight when I’m walking around a city all day. The night time puddle reflection and the Halloween group however were taken with my phone. All the rest, unusually for me, were also taken with the phone, even the studio shots as I forgot to take a camera that evening!

Most have been at least a little edited with Photoshop Elements and some more heavily edited with Nik Color Efex.

As always I am linking my selection to Ju-Lyn’s and Brian’s Changing Seasons challenge. Use the arrows to navigate the slideshow if you want to see all the images.

My feature photo is of the street tree outside our house. It was taken quite early in the month when it still had leaves. Now the berries remain (the birds don’t seem to like them) but the leaves have all fallen.



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