Scenes from yesterday afternoon's walk around town, mostly around the Pleasant View Academy, one of the oldest structures in town, dating from 1813. This was a school which produced, among other things, a number of Civil War generals. As you can see, it's in some disrepair, but it's a beautiful building.
Red brick, blue sky, on a clear bright November day.
Trees still in flame around the Academy's small garden:
And on my street:
We'd gone with my husband's student group to the neighborhood brewery for a beer-making tour.
This brewery/taproom opened in the summer of 2020 –– not the most auspicious time, I would have thought, but they seem to be making it go with a bang –– in what used to be the Eureka Cotton Mill, about three blocks from our house. For years we'd been driving by it in its dilapidation, and thinking, What a great old building. If only . . . And now, here is the if only, come to life. The beer is good: real traditional English, German, and occasionally other styles, with none of the all-too-common fooferah added, to entice people who think they don't like beer to drink some, because it doesn't really taste like beer. Most of the guys with us were of age –– we bought the one underage guy some lemonade –– so we all got flights of beers and had a tasting, which I think they thought was pretty illuminating. There was a Bavarian-stuff food truck outside, too, so they bought pretzels, brats, and so on as well.
(Seen here in arty photo I took last fall)
After the beer tour, we walked around town, visiting various cemeteries and the local Revolutionary War battlefield, then came back here to cook burgers and sit around the bonfire, which they did far longer than I did. I hung out for a good while, but finally got cold and came in, leaving them to their Man Talk(TM).
My Sierra still smells a little bit smoky today –- I was the one who actually made the bonfire –– but not too bad after a night's airing. Wearing her again, because she's warm and cozy, and because I don't really want to have to change clothes before we go to pick up our new dog later today. This will be the real test: white dog hair and possible excited claws, though she's a year old and does come with some manners already instilled. Here's her pretty face as a teaser, in a photo sent me by her current owner:
Obviously she likes snuggling with her person. I am going armed with a pocketful of treats –– here's to dresses with pockets, once again –– to start establishing myself as her person.
Wearing Sierra with this thrifted pale-pink/off-white cardigan for a change of color scheme. One thing I do have my eye open for in my thrifting endeavors toward the end of this year is more pink in the cardigan/third-layer department. Right now this pink cardigan is the only pink thing of that sort that I own, and I can never decide how much I like it. It's a large, and feels a little too wide and boxy. The sleeves are very wide, almost like kimono sleeves. I never liked it much with my Camellia, but it's better with the Sierra, which makes a darker "column" inside the cardigan shape, and has more of its own shape to assert against the relative shapelessness of the cardigan. The cardigan still isn't my favorite, and I might decide to outbox it, but for now it's all right. I was feeling like . . . something . . . other than what I have been wearing with it (grays and greens, mostly). And it's soft and reasonably warm. I'll likely be wearing a coat over my whole ensemble when we go out to Mass –– the first time this year I've really felt the need for a heavier top layer.
Wearing Sierra also with old pale-gray-heather leggings, wool socks, and Doc Martens. I didn't want to have to change my whole outfit before we go to pick up the dog, and truly, for the next little while, I'll probably be opting for leggings rather than tights, until I see what the excitement/jumping situation is going to be like. Leggings stand up to puppy treatment a little better than even the best tights –– though I was out doing yard work in my Snag microfiber tights on Friday, and they stood up to a little thorn-and-snagging abuse very well. Still and all, given how long it takes for them to arrive, I think I'll be a little protective of them for a while. I'm seeing Sierra-sweater-leggings-boots-or-Birks as a standard morning-walk uniform.
Hair in a pull-through half-updo with a velour scrunchie:
Thrifted little blue-bead earrings, another good staple to wear with everything.
And now I'd better read the Mass readings. I've been loving the weekday readings from the Book of Wisdom, with which I had never spent this much time before. Now I'm in love with it, not least because it's a great poem, full of the most gorgeous language –– apart from speaking truth.
Also currently rereading Rosemary Sutcliff's The Shining Company, based on the seventh-century (I think) Welsh epic, the Gododdin. The novel reads like a poem, lush in its language, and gorgeous, and elegiac long before you know what it has to be elegiac about. This was one of the last books my youngest children would suffer me to read aloud to them, at twelve or thirteen, and it's so good, even though it's devastating.
But again, to the Mass readings for the day.
LAST-MINUTE ADDITIONS:
Scarf (gift from my husband), because the back of my neck is cold:
And J.Crew brown suede pea coat (found at Goodwill two years ago):
Yes, brown with gray. I decree it. Anyway, this is the perfect coat, but even though I ScotchGuarded it extensively, the weather really has to be right. Cold, but not a chance of rain. That's the posish today. I'm sure I'll put on my plain old puffer jacket to get the dog, though.