Three Seasonal Things #5

Beech week; a steaming fence; the Christmas cake!

As is now traditional (well, I did it last week…) I begin this week with a roundup of last week’s seasonal moments from your comments, mainly because I love the way this paints a picture of the week just past. Please do contribute to the comments with anything you have noticed that feels particularly now, of this moment, seasonal or special this week. I’m really enjoying this.

We had:

A ‘wedge’ of swans (who knew?) flying majestically over the road on a drive to work; a huge winter sunset; a flowering marigold in a lawn defying the cold; snowflake art made from stems in beech leaves; a sudden influx of birds into a garden after a feeder refill; bare allotment soil being covered for winter; magnificent beech woods; Japanese maples finally turning; marsh harriers circling reedbeds in autumn sunshine; a Christmas cactus that follows its own rules, timing wise.

Here are mine:

Beech week?

You may notice two mentions of beeches in the above, and it just so happens that I too was bowled over by the beeches in my local woods this week, most particularly by this golden-brown carpet of leaves. Could this be their week? They were beautiful all autumn, of course, but perhaps they have suddenly reached the point where they are impossible to ignore? I like the idea. It’s very hard to pinpoint the peak of anything in autumn, everything is constantly changing and the second you think some tree might have reached its best colour, the leaves are gone. I love the idea that we might have collectively spotted Peak Beech. Perhaps more specifically though this is the week when lots of the leaves lie, all coppery golden on the ground and before they turn to mush. I’d love your observations.

A steaming fence

One of the things I was determined to mention this week was the gloom. I really felt the weight of our ever-shortening days at the beginning of the week, when they combined with torrential rain to make me feel pinned indoors. I began to wonder (again) why I don’t live in the Mediterranean, when, really, it’s right there.

But I couldn’t bring myself to take a picture of the downpour and so what you have here is the morning after the rains. The fence had been soaked through and the temperature dropped and then the sun came out and fell full on it, making the moisture evaporate and steam into the air. And yes, that day was beautiful, and autumn didn’t seem so bad again.

The Christmas cake!

I am proud. I am so smug. What is it about making a Christmas cake, and on actual Stir Up Sunday too, that makes me feel so very pleased with myself? In truth I have rarely got it together to do this on the actual day, and I suspect that writing this newsletter might have goaded me into it this time, because what could be more seasonal?

I feel a little like I have kicked off the Christmas season, and in fact on the night after the baking, the scents of Christmas still lingering through the house, I had a ludicrous anxiety dream about it being Christmas Day and having just an end of a loaf and a couple of packets of crisps in. Although I was in a proper panic in the dream, I was rather pleased with it when I woke up. It suggests such a gentle pace of life, such an absence of genuine horror, a kind of Archers omnibus of a nightmare.

Anyway, at this rate I’ll be super prepared by the actual day…right?

And speaking of Christmas preparedness (shameless segue alert) I’ve been told that my book, The Almanac, a Seasonal Guide to 2023, makes a beautiful stocking filler… click on the link to find it.

Please drop your seasonal moments from the past week into the comments below (if you are reading this on email you will have to click through to the actual site to do it). I love to read them.