Week 34
Finally, a tomato; the new garden border; trying not to be impressed by Charles
Hello!
Aren’t we just wavering here between summer and autumn. Your comments last week were half butterflies, ice creams and naps in warm sunlight, and half rotting leaf mould, rose hips and migrating geese. Personally I am hoping to stave it off a little longer as I am finally going on my SUMMER holiday next week and so hoping for a late blast of warmth. I will be in the sea and eating ice creams regardless, and there will be at least one beach barbecue unless it is literally torrential all week.
So: this is my weekly post in which I write about things which felt particularly ‘this week’ about my week, the things that I might not spot/see/do/eat at any other moment in the year, and that mark this time out as now. It’s an exercise in looking, and in appreciating every moment of the year as it turns.
A huge part of these weekly posts is the gathering of comments from you, the readers, in which we paint a world-wide picture of the week just passed, and it came to my attention this week that some people are reading these posts and not knowing how to join in. If that is you, read on, if not you can skip to the usual business, below.
So: you receive these newsletters as emails, and in the email there is a button in the top right hand corner marked ‘View in browser’. If you click on that you can read the newsletter as a post and then comment when you reach the bottom by clicking on the ‘comment’ button. OR you can read in the email and then click on the ‘comment’ button and it will take you to the comment section. Everyone can comment. You do not have to be invited and you do not have to be a paid subscriber. If you have been lurking and not feeling brave enough, please do just jump in. This community is very welcoming and encouraging and chatty, so I highly recommend it.
The usual business
Here is my round up of your beautiful comments from last week’s comment section:
A delicate, pink mint moth on an echinacea flower, the wings and petals matching
The smell every morning now of leaf matter and autumn leaves
The taste of the blackberries under a blanket of almond sponge
The sight of geese flying towards the marshes, one struggling to catch up with the V
Eating ice creams, rock pooling, watching kestrels on the cliff edges of Tintagel Castle, and swallows swooping in the country lanes
Hedgerows and the verges of roads and motorways full of hawthorn berries, looking shiny in the sun
A robin intricately warbling at 8am, the singing signifying the slow end of summer and the approach of autumn...
Blueberries from the bush, a morning treat with yoghurt
Skeins of geese flying overhead honking away and house martins still flying around
The fat, bulbous fairytale-ish hips of Rosa rugosa
A glut of seasonal vegetables at the allotment - broad beans, spinach, courgette, runner beans
Blackberrying and getting purple stained fingers
No more swifts this week over the evening garden
Carefully stepping over the hickory nuts that have been falling in the driveway
A rather tired looking front garden
Allotment raspberries with ice cream, topped with a summer berry coolie, roasted white chocolate and nasturtium petals
Excessive heat wave and stillness in the afternoons; popsicles and peaches (Pacific Northwest US)
An autumnal smell to the front garden, where many things are going to seed but there’s still lots of butterflies
Sunset this week perfectly timed for a walk after dinner, and the pale pastel colours of summer sunset have shifted to the fiery shades of autumn
Tasting the first elderberries during a country walk: so earthy and a hint of sweetness
Tender annuals of tithonia, cosmos, rudbeckia and scabious finally showing off
Picking and eating fresh figs, gathering plums from beneath neglected trees, like beautiful jewels on the ground. Making jam.
Beautiful. We also love our dispatches from the southern hemisphere, this week from Australia:
Very strong westerly winds are blustering today, scattering blossom all over the forest floor which looks so pretty. Earlier in the week the temperature rose high enough for a few crickets to make a cameo appearance and serenade us for a night before the mercury dropped again. I'm readying pots for sowing seeds for spring
And finally, if you will indulge me, I want to make a little space for great friend of all commenters, Sue, who had a very special and seasonal occasion this week that we have all been cheering her along in preparation for, and I thought people might have missed as it came in as a late comment:
Well Living Almanac friends we are back from our Golden Anniversary celebrations with minds and hearts full! We really created a village fete vibe and had ALL the 40 best beloved family and friends beaming at us as we opened the celebrations by telling them that this was our gift to each other - to be together in love, and thanks for each being a special part of our 50-year story! Swallows swooped from their nests in the eaves, gorgeous food, jam jars full of the most glorious flowers, my friend sang cool jazz standards about love, and our 19 year old granddaughter made the most wonderful speech, saying we’ve been “the best grandparents ever” and given her a model of marriage which has set her “aim and standards very high” !!!! Not a dry eye in the house. It was all just as wonderful as we hoped.
I’m getting a little teary here myself Sue! It sounds beautiful. Congratulations from us all.
Here’s my Week 34:
Finally, a tomato
By this time last year we were swimming in delicious, red, ripe tomatoes absolutely dripping with juice. This year? One of the ‘Sungold’ s is now nearly ready. No, it’s meant to be that colour. It IS nearly ripe. Really…
NOT a vintage tomato year in the UK.
The new garden border
You will recall that I made a big fuss about buying up a load of plants for creamy and raspberry colours earlier in the year. Well I then planted them up and I am not expecting much from them until next year. But I just thought from this angle, this little corner is starting to look like something nice might happen here soon, and I thought you might like to see.
Trying not to be impressed by Charles
I am not a royalist. I don’t want to offend anyone who feels otherwise but let’s just say I am not a big fan of the whole operation. And YET…it was a special birthday in our family this week (the eagle-eyed will recall we had a little pre-party a few weeks ago) and I found it hard not to be impressed by this. A small return on investment perhaps, but it’s a very nice touch, and classily done. Happy birthday, nana.
Please leave your comments below. What have you been eating, doing, sniffing, gazing at and jumping into that made this week feel particularly ‘this week’ for you?
It’s been a week of waiting, but we are very proud parents having had wonderful GCSE results yesterday, so onwards to A Levels we go. Now planning a small family celebration at the weekend, which feels like the very last summer event. I definitely have that back to school feeling now.
Loads of butterflies, which make the heat and humidity here in the US a bit more bearable. A few cooler, drier mornings that lend themselves to pre-dawn coffee on the porch with the cats watching the other critters (bats, cats, a few other humans) make their rounds.