All at once summer collapsed into fall – Oscar Wilde How you view the autumn depends whether you see the edge of summer exploding into celebratory firework display of red and gold, gently declining into a melancholia of mists and mellow fruitfulness or a clarion call to prepare for the coming of the great darkness […]
autumn
Michaelmas Fruits
Pinkgills, Earthtongues, Fairy-clubs and Parrots In these islands there are no hedgerows adorned with hips and haws, orchards laded with apples or woodland walks full of glowing leaves and the chance discovery of spiky, sweet chestnuts, milky hazel nuts or golden chanterelles. Our native woodlands are confined to deep ravines where the rowans, birches and […]
Vegetable Garden
The potatoes are in sacks under the bench in the shed, the garlic neatly platted and hanging above, soon to be joined by the onions which are drying in the polytunnel. There are boxes and boxes of jam and chutney and both freezers are full to bursting point. Autumn has definitely arrived, complete with the […]
Hurricane Season?
No, just the first of the autumn gales.
Arrivals and Departures
I should know better by now but the arrival of autumn always takes me by surprise. The gold of the buttercups is fading and the bleached heads of the grasses are a pale cream highlighted by the richer hues of the red clover. Russet brown seed heads of the wild angelica stand tall like skeletal […]