Week 30
Blackberry time; big birthday weekend; fairy rings
Hello! I hope you have had a good week. Mine has been cheered by the news that As the Season Turns, the podcast I make with Ffern, has been shortlisted for the British Podcasting Awards! In the ‘Climate’ category. We are all so delighted.
I haven’t been great at posting the links to it here and I will remedy that (here’s the July edition) but I know that lots of you do listen to it, so a quick plea: please take a moment to vote for us in the Listeners’ Choice award. We most probably don’t stand a chance as we are up against some real biggies, but I know our listeners are a very loyal lot so it is worth a shot. Thank you!
To business. This is my weekly post about things that have been seasonal or particular about my past week, in which I begin with a round up of your comments from last week, and we paint a kind of ‘this moment in time portrait’.
Here’s your Week 29:
Raindrops on roses; evening pickings of veg for dinner; cicada song drowning out everything else - the sound of deep, slow, sleepy summer in the American South; picking out the good brambling spots already; twilight closing in earlier each day; the change in light, mellow, golden; people emerging from school sports day with medals and rosy cheeks; that “end of school feeling” painted on every face; an evening of rain, eating white bean fasolia with feta, fresh basil and crusty bread, the backdoor open; drunken bees on the allium drumsticks; two gossamer winged dragonflies investigating the garden; a butterfly landing on my travel mug; peaches that tasted as good as they smelt; a family of spruce grouse roaming the bluff and tree frogs everywhere (Alaska); eating handfuls of podded peas straight from the window box; hearing the newly fledged young buzzards calling to their parents as they swoop over the old quarry behind our house; plums, courgettes, tomatoes ripening, two fennel bulbs maturing in the potager; being dwarfed by acanthus towers blissing with bees; red and yellow Essex plum carpets under the trees collected for plum and frangipane tart; pristine beautiful newly emerged butterflies; Honey gold sunshine, a waxing yellow moon; a thick blanket of the pearly grey fog some call Karl, keeping San Francisco cool; cutting the privet hedge that was as high as an elephants eye; the first dahlias at the florist (and now at home in my vase); black bats darting overhead on my evening walk
And two entries from the southern hemisphere, both noticing their lengthening days as we up here notice ours shortening:
Fiery unfurling of witch hazel blossom and slowly moving into longer days (NZ); flying foxes serenading us nightly along with the king parrots, wagtails, lorikeets, bowerbirds, and bellbirds as the light returns (SE Queensland, Australia)
Magical. I LOVE hearing from the southern hemisphere, particularly at these points. We are fooling ourselves that summer is going to last forever, but their lengthening days say otherwise…anyway, here’s my Week 30:
Blackberry time
It’s here! At least in the south west of England anyway. This was literally my breakfast this morning. The brambles in the field where I walk the dogs are well grazed over, but not nearly as much as most bramble spots near me are, and so some of the blackberries are allowed to fully ripen before being snapped up by greedy hands. I have eaten more fully ripe and soft blackberries this year than I have for many years. The benefits of the dog walk. What I haven’t yet done is take a vessel and collect any up to come home with me for the best crumble in the world…you know the one…maybe next week.
Big birthdays
Two very big birthdays in our family last weekend, lots of family around and I threw a SURPRISE party for my boy, which nearly sent me off the ledge in nerves. It was all a lot of fun at the time but totally exhausting and it’s taken me most of this week to pick myself up after. To be honest it was all so busy that I didn’t really get a chance to think about the reality that I now have a properly adult son, or to dwell too long on the nature of time passing... I think I’m stopping myself to be honest, but that will slowly sink in. Special times, anyway, and properly marked.
Fairy rings
I visit this field almost every morning with the dogs and I have only this week noticed…fairy rings! Loads of them, and all in fruit now. Absolutely magical. I’m not sure if I’m meant to step in them or avoid them or what…advice welcomed.
That’s it from me! Please leave your comments below, telling us what you have noticed about this week that has felt particularly ‘this week’.
18 is such a big birthday Lia - glad you were able to celebrate. My 18th was the first week of lockdown so it was a bit of a downbeat affair! My first thing is really noticing that “dry” July look which is so different from heady June - the long golden grasses, the sorrel with its dark red “starched” look - the way it crackles in your fingers when you touch it, like brown wrapping paper or lightening. Second, the wayside flowers being outdone by fennel with its halo dusting of yellow pollen - standing tall on waste ground and in community gardens. And third, an evening in a tiny tapas bar, listening to a musical instrument that is very rare - a dulcitone - play a heartstopping ode to that high point in Ashton Court where you can hear the skylarks. He named it “Skylark’s plateau” and got us all to play skylark noises off our phone in an increasing wave of sound, magical.
We celebrated a 13th birthday this week, which also feels a little like time slipping away, but we had a lovely afternoon tea to mark the occasion. Blackberries are way off here, it’s a late August treat, although when I was little it was always September and a return to school thing. And never step into a fairy ring - you’ll be whisked away by the fairies forever!