On Countryfile, an image of flooding that startles me.  It could be mine.  Brigsteer, reads the caption. The Lyth Valley where  flooding in Cumbria on 22nd  November looks most spectacular, as it always does.
The River Kent rises and falls fast and on the morning after the downpours the river was in spate, but flooding was localised, not apparent. We heard of homes flooded but saw nothing.

Ice pattern on a skylight window. Columns of smoke rise unperturbed over the misty town.  Above the horizon, a grey cloud glows with a border of gold and a rosy flush tells of sunrise. Here comes the sun.

Water droplets shimmer on fine branches of birch.  My cameras see differently but neither can catch those tiny points of light . 

The morning was so still that reflections in Rydal Water were pin-sharp, but there's no stopping on the busy road to take photographs.  A bright and sunny November day, when light began to fade mid-afternoon and we drove back to Kendal warm and cosy and lost in outer darkness, no idea where we might be.

High tide, and sunlight gleams on the Kent Viaduct. There is gloss and sheen on the estuary and the gentle sound of waves lapping the shore.  We walk the narrow coastal path, hearing redshank and curlew, glimpsing the water and the sunlit shore toward Grange Over Sands.  An inlet winds into the estuary, through salt marsh where red breasted merganser swim by a flock of dunlin, put to flight by a dog.

Herdwicks and Hebrideans graze in the pasture below Queen's Road, beside fruit trees from an old orchard.  Pastoral at my feet, Kendal down in the dale, and the fells in the distance.  So glad to have met the proud owner of these tups, here to promote flora and conservation grazing. 
The old wall bounding the pasture is crammed with ferns and lichens. And the exquisite little rue-leaved saxifrage which flowers after rain, and can appear in April and May.

Two days ago, a flock of thirty fieldfare flew calling above  Scout Scar escarpment, the sun glinting their pale underwings.  I could hear them somewhere in the trees below the cliff but the wind grew loud and drowned them out.
Fieldfare on a fine November morning, if I can find them. Ten years ago I watched a flock foraging on yew berries on the cliff buttress, a pale flutter of wings against dark yew foliage.  Holly and hawthorn berries might tempt them, so I'm tracking their food sources looking for winter thrush.

Looking for Lady Anne Clifford,  we discovered  John Behan's Ghost Boat 2000. Months later, I realised his inspiration was  the Broighter Hoard of Iron Age treasure in the National Museum of Ireland. 
Search online for Lady Anne, The Great Picture and  zoom-in on tiny manuscript. ' She escaped a great danger by thieves who intended to rob her and her house. This countess had many enemies in the time of her new widowhood from whose evil and crafty devices it pleased God to deliver her.' 
In her youthful portrait  a scatter of books shows her taste. 

The culprits had scarpered. But there was poaching, heavy poaching.  Fresh cow pats told of their presence.  And deep slop and  cloven-hood prints where two months ago there was  a  firm grassy footpath.  The poaching culprits of cloven-hoof.  Had they gone, or were they lurking in  hidden hollows?
 Today, I could relax and be merry.  I crossed Kendal Race Course escorted by a man stout of heart  who knows a thing or two about cattle, a gentleman-farmer. 

An evocative day from Cartmel with hazy glimpses of the sea from Hampsfell.  We walk part of the Cistercian Way, mindful of the monks travelling to  Cartmel Priory.  Medieval monks would scarcely recognise the place today, but there is solitude up on Hampsfell at Halloween.
My find of the day is swags of black bryony festooning the hedgerows. The best I've found this autumn.