A Magic Paintbrush. . . . . . . .

Sometime, during the chilly, rainy night, someone

 tiptoed through the garden with an artist's palette

 and a paintbrush.

At last we've had some rain. 

Early morning light showers later turned into a steady

 rain yesterday. 

This morning, when the sun came up, I puttered about storing a

 few items in the potting shed for Winter months, taking out the

 garbage, (someone has to do it!), and of course capturing a

 few garden shots to share the radiant colors, heartbreakingly

 beautiful after the rain.

We actually raked a ton of leaves on Saturday, now 

there are tons more! They will have to stay until we 

return after the holidays . . . . . too wet and too little

 time to work in the garden now.

Pre-Christmas cruising . . . . . . . . .

We sailed on this 'royal lady' in June 2014 and loved everything about Cunard's

 smallest - but still large - ocean liner. She took us to the beautiful Baltic

 countries and on to St. Petersburg, Russia - an amazing journey.

This weekend we fly across the pond to London, then head down to the port city
 of Southampton to board Queen Victoria on Monday afternoon and sail away
 that evening. Looks like our deck chairs are waiting - hopefully it will be warm
 enough to relax out there on sea days - bring on the blankets and hot toddies
 please - and calm water will be hugely appreciated!

This ten day cruise will take us to Portugal (Lisbon), Spain (Cadiz, Malaga, La Coruna), 

and Morocco (Tangiers), and return us to England in time for a quick whiz down to
 Devon and my home town for Christmas week with family and friends.
Am I excited? You bet I am!
As always, I will do my best to share highlights of our trip along the
 way - it's all up to the Internet of course!

A dash of Christmas magic. . . . . . . .

Because we'll be so far away for the Christmas holidays, decorating

 is not happening around the cottage this year. It's somewhat sad for me

 as I do love that part of preparing for the festivities . . . . . . .but come

 next year I hope to be here dragging out all those boxes of ornaments from

 the attic, setting up my tree in the gazebo, along with lights, wreaths and

 fresh green garlands on the front porch.

At SuzAnna's Antiques open house last week,

 I did buy this beautiful golden reindeer (oops,
it's more likely a stag!) also the sheet music stenciled
 with a sweet bird sitting on a holly branch with the

French greeting,  Joyeux Noël.
I'm displaying them so at least I have a small touch
 of Christmas to look at this week. . . . . . 
. . . . . . and of course I'm enjoying looking at all the 
beautiful decor around your homes.