Week 38

A perfect pear; leaves and light; gusty and robust

Sunshine through the banana

Hello! First of all an apology. I try to spread my posts out so as not to bombard you with too many posts at once - I know we all have plenty to read - but today you will be hit with not one but TWO posts from me, politely staggered through the day to attempt to disguise the fact. This is because early tomorrow morning is the moment of the autumn equinox (or spring equinox for you southern hemisphere dwellers), and I have made one of my chatty little films, and so you really needed to have it today. Look out for it. It contains instructions for cosiness.

This is my weekly post in which we chart the season’s changes, and it really does feel like we are balancing on the cusp of summer and autumn now, with gardens still lush and full, but spiders strung and mornings darkening. We begin with a selection of your beautiful comments from last week. If you would like to be considered for inclusion next week, just leave a comment by pressing the ‘leave a comment’ button at the bottom of this post. Everyone can join in!

Here’s your Week 37:

The appearance of cherry and artichoke oak galls

The garden verdant and still blooming, the roses having a final flourish

A ‘V’ of geese flying over the garden, honking and heading east

Orion and his winter retinue in the pre-dawn sky

Cutting dahlias in the rich jewel-like antiquey shades of autumn

Pear trees laden with fruit, robins in fine voice, bats frantically feeding up

Rising in the dark once again but witnessing glorious sunrises

Back to school baking and batch cooking

Royal poinciana trees with their flame coloured blooms in delicate fronded leaf (Vietnam)

Drying borlotti beans, making confit tomatoes and ratatouille

Blackbirds singing at dusk

Spiders creating 'gates' across the entrance to the vegetable patch

The chatter of starlings, having made short work of the elderberries and moved on to the rowan berries

The last of the ospreys leaving the valley

A family playing cricket on a walk in the beautiful late warm evening sun, autumn postponed - just for a while

Morning cobwebs only visible because of the dew - a work of art

A tawny owl woo-wooing in suburban Birmingham

Nasturtiums scrambling through the vegetable patch

Blowsy gardens of hungover plants while strolling city streets

Quiet at the coast as the seagulls’ young have left the nest .. no more loud squawking throughout the night

Plump figs and fragrant pears in the greengrocers

Jumper and scarf on

A new quality to the wind - it's getting gustier and more robust

Making apple cake for Rosh Hashana, spying an orange California newt shimmying along under foggy skies, and smelling the promise of fall fungi sprouting in the drippy forest

Out walking along the river seeing tender new oak leaves and bright willow tassels (New Zealand)

And here’s a little score keeping of the leaves, as we discussed doing last week. Small changes so far, except in the very north:

Two or three yellow leaves on rowans; leaves turning brown and dropping from a cherry tree; three fiery red leaves on our otherwise green-leaved cherry tree - it does this autumnal hinting every year; a leaf or two on an elm tree (Virginia, US); colour on the grape, the beech hedge, but mostly the plane trees - one gust of wind and their leaves fly off!; horse chestnuts that are browning first - whether with autumn or rust; Sycamore leaves falling (Perthshire)

Such poetry as ever. Thank you for your contributions, they are always so magic.

Here’s my Week 38:

A perfect pear

We have always struggled to catch our pears in their perfect moment, which famously lasts for about 12 seconds: hard and inedible at breakfast, mealy by teatime. We picked most of them early, before ripening, and then left them to ripen in the kitchen, and then actually remembered to eat them. There are a few more still to go and we are monitoring intently. I believe this is ‘Williams Bon Chretien’, and it is very smooth and non gritty and extremely juicy.

Leaves and light

I just loved this beautiful soft autumn light on these Virginia creeper leaves, another entry for our ‘leaf watch’.

Gusty and robust

In The Almanac 2024 I have written about weather lore for each month, and in September I mention the idea of ‘equinoctial gales’ - the idea that something about the equinox sets off the winds. Sadly it seems that despite being widely believed in and very poetic indeed there is no real evidence for it, ‘However’ I write…’the sun’s waning hold on the northern hemisphere’s weather systems around this time can allow for bad weather to roll in from the north Atlantic, and the autumn equinox can often be a moment when the weather turns more autumnal , and so windier, as you would expect.’

It certainly seemed that way this morning, with these ash leaves being blown up the way.

If you fancy more such weather wisdom for the whole year…here are some links to the book.

That’s it for this week. Please leave your comments below: what has made this week ‘this week’ for you? What have you eaten/seen/drunk/sniffed that feels particular to this moment in time?

I can’t wait to read your comments.