Week 41

A completed project; pools of light are back!; out of season brugmansia

The park is just kind of fading slightly, nothing dramatic yet

Hello! Welcome to my weekly post in which we track the season as it changes, together, week by week, and create - slightly by accident - a kind of beautiful seasonal poetry between us in the process.

Before we begin, a tiny piece of housekeeping, and some news. For a long time my wonderful paid subscribers have been supporting me with small regular financial contributions (the cost of one nice coffee per month!) for little reward other than a nice fuzzy feeling. Thank you! It has been so very appreciated, and hugely helpful in spurring me on to keep writing these weekly newsletters and our weekly chats, which do take quite a bit of doing. But I think it is about time you loyal band had something a little more concrete for your trouble, and so today I am starting to phase in a few paid-subscriber-only benefits. The first is a bit of an experiment and it begins today: paid subscribers now have the ability to start threads in the ‘chat’ section of the substack app, which has always been extremely lively and fun. I’ve seen this not work very well in some substack communities and work brilliantly in others, so we’ll see how it goes, but I feel like we as a community are good at chats. Please keep things roughly on topic, along the lines of recipes, gardening tips, star and moon spotting and of course anything seasonal, and I’d love you to ‘private’ chats too sometimes, so that we can have more of a cosy time. I look forward to joining in.

The second benefit is my new video series. I am going to be making a paid-subscribers-only video each month with my musings from the month, something a little more personal than my previous video series, and covering among other things the cycle and process of making The Almanac through the year. And finally I am now putting together the first in a series of playlists for paid subscribers. This first will be a gorgeously smoky, folky Samhain/Guy Fawkes play list containing some of the songs from the October and November chapters of the Almanacs over the years, plus a few others that suit this upcoming spooky/fiery/dark and sparkly time. Made for sitting by the fire with a whisky contemplating the coming winter. Hop on board if you want to be a part of all of this.

To business! Many of you know the drill, but just in case… I write here about three things that I have noticed, done, eaten, smelt etc…that have felt particular to this week, and you join in in the comments section with your own. I then fancy up your comments in italics and show them back to you, and somehow it just works beautifully. Everyone can join in. You just need to click on the comment button at the bottom of this post. So first and without further ado, here is your Week 40:

Waking up in the dark, being lulled back to sleep by the sound of the wind in the trees

No one just going for a dip in the sea, the people who swim all year round now have hats and one woman already has her black swimming gloves

The murder of crows that live on the beach and looked strange all summer fit in now

Being greeted by pumpkins, Hallowe’en costumes and chocolate in Sainsbury’s

Crackling autumn fires in the open air

Blissful scents of the fallen apples in the orchard

Iced fingers, goosebumps on exposed thighs, our breaths clouding on the cool air on an early morning pedal. Warming ourselves at the boulangerie with coffee and croque monsieur

Feeling the earth still warm under my bare feet doing Qi Gong in the garden first thing in the morning

The first log burner fire of the year all cosy with red wine whilst cracking open green papery hazelnuts we found in an ancient Devonshire grove

Watching the last few butterflies playfully flutter by in the garden

Frantic squirrels collecting and burying their finds

The bulb order arriving and wondering where I think they are all going to go

Gorgeous rich autumn sunshine burnishing each afternoon with such a golden glow - really warming, but never too hot

I made the first Parkin of the year, this week. October = Parkin (I’m a Lancashire lass!). Treacly, sticky, deliciousness, the taste of October.

Embroidery, with an audiobook, whilst watching the chattering birds on the newly hung feeders

Planting the summer sown biennials into the borders

The skittering sound of dry leaves as they tumble and tap dance along the pavement on a breezy day

Searching for signs of seasonal shift in the sub tropical climate in which I find myself, turns up webs in the mangrove spun by iridescent spotted spiders, rain with no lightening, and an occasional drift of drier air

Choosing the first pumpkins of the season with my 3-year-old son at the local pumpkin patch and feeling very Octobery

Spring flowers blooming in the trees, a katydid flying by at the café and landing on the sleeve of a woman sitting nearby. The summer insects are all at their largest and are laying eggs

The garden taking on a rusty purple tinge and the ornamental grasses going pleasingly wild

The horrendous mess that is the garden before it's tidied for the slow season

Curing all of my harvested pumpkins in the window, one big one and four Sweet Dumpling pumpkins

On a sodden log above the glistening autumn leaves and pumpkin colored waxcaps, pin-pricks of velvet blue mushrooms ignoring the color scheme of October

Apple crumble for October Sundays

The light and colour suddenly changing from bright and green to golden, brown, and red. Bonfire smoke

A slow cooked beef bourguignon, bubbling and rich with red wine - served with roasted garlic mash

The horse chestnut tree viewed from the bedroom window turning shades of ochre & gold - the green mostly surrendered

Digging up allotment potatoes and a marrow and adding chorizo to make a tasty supper

The sounds of the first fireworks of the season sputtering in the evenings. A mizzly walk through the forest and coming across a sea of puffball mushrooms

Beautiful, beautiful! I never get over them. Thank you.

Here’s my Week 41:

A completed project

In my autumn equinox film I talked about getting together a kit for the darker months, part of which would be a cosy project to sit by the fire/telly and calmly apply your wintery self to. Well I have my timing all wrong because I have just completed mine, but I am very proud of it and thought I would show it off. It will be very lovely to wrap myself in for those cosy nights, though I do find that my hands want something to fiddle with now.

It is the Rainbow Sea Waves blanket from New Leaf Designs using Scheeples colour pack Catona, if you want to have a go yourself. I have only ever made two crochet objects, this and another blanket, so I am very far from expert. This was very easy once I got the hang of the two stitches involved: up the way and down the way; repeat.

Speaking of preparation for autumn and winter I really loved this piece by Katherine May on How to Light the Winter Months, and I feel like you might too. And speaking of which…

Pools of light are back!

My woods-visiting season very much runs from autumn to spring. I just don’t like our local woods in the summer. I don’t know if it’s something about them in particular - I’m sure in general I should like summer woods - but they are in a valley and get so gloomy in summer and quite frankly they just feel a bit weird. I ventured tentatively back last weekend and look! Pools of light where the leaves are falling from the trees! Woods season has begun.

Out of season brugmansia

These flowers were meant to exotically fragrance our deck on hot summer evenings. Instead - I can only guess because of the extreme lack of summer sun - they have appeared in October. They look lovely but c’mon, we’ve all moved on…

That’s it from me, apart from my customary reminder that my book The Almanac 2024 is available from many outlets including those you will find here, and makes a magical Samhain/Hallowe’en/Guy Fawkes gift - is that a thing?

But most importantly please leave your comments below. What have you done/seen/noticed/loved/hated/sniffed this week that felt particularly ‘this week’?