The new Southern year
The end of October brings winter to completion in the Southern Hemisphere; while Halloween howls through the enthusiastic and care-free, its winter symbolism belies the Southern Season as we enter the beginning of the seasonal procession with the onset of the Celtic summer in the south, our equivalent of Beltaine is at hand! A walk along the banks of the Swan River in Perth to get a picture of the Tranby oaks at the eve of summer took us to meet a family of water fowl - as pictured here - and they serve to remind us of what Dafydd ap Gwilym sang in the mid fourteenth century in his Haf - Summer, "Cnwd da iawn, cnawd dianaf, O’r ddear hen a ddaw’r haf", that is, an excellent crop and untainted life comes forth from the old earth in summer. 
Summer has ever been the beginning of the Celtic year,
"So in the South you must remember,
It’s the merry merry month of November!"