Week 33

Beech nuts; crows on a stubbly field; an arrival

Hello! Welcome to my weekly post in which I tell you three things that have felt particular and seasonal about my week, and then you tell me yours, and between us we track the seasons week by week in their minutiae of bites of food, sniffs of flowers, local annual fetes and academic timetables.

We kick off with a round up of your comments from last week, which this week I have given a new spacious and centred format to make them even more gilded and precious and poetic looking. Though actually it’s just occurred to me that it makes them look a bit like menu items. Maybe we don’t mind that? Feedback is welcome, but I might ignore it as despite appearances this is actually a benign dictatorship…

Here’s your Week 32:

Elder trees sagging under the weight of the purple berries, and fields of waving ripe apple trees (Atlas Mountains)

Purple and magnificent heather (Northumbrian hills)

Cutting back the lavender

All the rocket bolted and in flower

Festival season in Edinburgh: August meaning constantly walking into the back of someone who has stopped to take a picture of something you long stopped paying any mind to

The Queensferry Burryman!!!

Gathering seeds of Ammi, nigella and cornflowers to sow later in the month

Cutting purple spires of gladioli

Walking to the beach late in the evening for fish and chips, then watching the sun disappear over the horizon

The peace of the two weeks in London when it seems everyone has left the city

Dragonflies amid the water lilies - a summer song still in the warm air

Butterflies and swallows in the sunshine

Watching my daughter pull up beetroot, then steaming and munching on their wonderful home grown flavours

Losing track of time in a pleasant state of flow while navigating brambles to avoid thorns and pick only the ripest blackberries

Making s’mores…twice

Feeling thankful for both air conditioning in my home and access to deep, shady woodlands (North Carolina, US)

Visiting the local ‘pick your own’ farm this week which has now moved on from strawberries to dahlias and sunflowers. Son very cross (re: strawberries)

Swimming in the lake and finding an empty blackbird nest in the reeds, admiring the work that went into it and thinking of the chick (hopefully) successfully fledged

Beautiful! A couple of you last week mentioned how much they enjoyed reading these and it made me think that I must say how much I love putting them together. I literally have a big smile on my face as I do it.

Oh but hang on, Leendertz! Not finished yet. Because we have our semi-regular dispatches from the Southern Hemisphere this week too:

Eucalyptus blossom, Honey Bird Amber and Moonlight Mist Grevillea, all driving the local birds crazy, and possibly making them slightly drunk (Australia)

Hard frosts here this week, followed by snow on the hills (New Zealand)

PLUS I asked for your crumble thoughts, tips and quirks, and you said:

Plum and blackberry make a great crumble combo, and plums are earlier than the apples

Spelt flour, rolled oats, flaked almonds, honey and a touch of butter with seasonal fruits - gooseberries apricots and brambles - cooked with cinnamon stick and honey - baked in individual ramekins for that touch of ‘made for you’

Low carb crumble topping made with ground almonds and lupin/flax flour

rhubarb & strawberry crumble (dad’s recipe/blueprint)

I do like sultanas in mine and (Mrs Feasts calls me weird for this) milk poured over it

Mrs Feasts might be right…

Thank you all for joining in so wholeheartedly, as ever.

Here’s my Week 33:

Beech nuts

It is very hard to avoid leaping ahead when you are constantly on the look out for seasonal changes, isn’t it? I saw these and my first thought was ‘no, I should save those, too autumny’. But there they were, this very week. Seeds are being dropped ready to nestle into moist autumn soil and there is no escaping it.

Crows on a stubbly field

The last time I was here it was meadow, and I’m certain in previous years it has been left uncut for longer, because I remember listening to the crickets in the long grass here last year. But this is an area that appears to be very carefully managed for wildlife, so I am confident that whatever they are doing they are doing it deliberately and mindfully. The long grass has been cut and removed entirely, and in the stubble these crows were pecking about, looking…well yes a bit autumnal. Gah!

An arrival

Look what arrived in the post this morning! It really is as beautiful as I’d hoped. It feels very full and very useful, and a bit different while also being the same, which is all the things I always want it to be. Here are links for pre-ordering it if you want yours to drop onto your mat on publication day on August 31st.

That’s it from me! Let me know what you have noticed, eaten, done or smelt that has felt particularly ‘this week’ in the comments below.