I have to disagree with my sister (something I do with caution): there is something appositely astringent about 11 November in Ottawa that we would rarely get in spring.

If we did not have it in mid-autumn, then Charles Causeley's poem would hardly fit --


Armistice Day

I stood with three comrades in Parliament Square,
November, her freights of grey fire unloading.
No sound from the city upon the pale air;
Above us, the sea-bell eleven exploding.

Down by the bands the burning memorial
Beats all the brass in a royal array.
But at our end we are not so sartorial,
Out of (as usual) the rig of the day.

Starry is wearing a split pusser's flannel
Rubbed, as he is, by the regular tide;
Oxo, the ducks that he ditched in the Channel,
In June, 1940 (when he was inside).

Kitty recalls his abandon-ship station,
Running below at the Old Man's salute,
And (with a deck watch) going down for the duration
Wearing his oppo's pneumonia-suit.

Comrades, for you the black captain of carracks
Writes in Whitehall his appalling decisions,
But, as was often the case in the Barracks,
Several ratings are not at Divisions.

Into my eyes the stiff sea-horses stare,
Over my head sweeps the sun like a swan.
As I stand alone in Parliament Square
A cold bugle calls, and the city moves on.