Week 43

Winter fields; I believe in fairies for 20 minutes; indoor gloves

Hello! I hope you have had a beautiful Octobery week, whatever that means in your part of the world. Before we begin this weekly round up of seasonal stuff, All Hallowmas is nearly upon us, and I have been thinking of some ways we can mark this pivotal, rich and spooky moment in the year here on this Substack. So: tomorrow I am going to be posting my All Hallowmas playlist which I have been having a huge amount of fun beavering away on and curating. It is folky and really quite creepy in parts and also includes new folk renditions of some of the old traditional All Hallowmas and Guy Fawkes songs that I have included in my almanacs over the years. It is for paid subscribers only so do sign up or upgrade now if you want to receive it as well as all the other bits and bobs I am now doing for paid subscribers.

I also thought we might do a 'Hallowe’en special’ in the chat part of the app. If you haven’t joined in with the ‘chat’ yet it is really fun because it allows you, the readers, to upload your own pictures and to chat informally with me and each other. You have to download the Substack app but then it is all pretty straightforward. We do a Sunday morning show-and-tell of our seasonal pics, which we will continue as usual this week, but I also thought it would be fun to have a ‘Show us your pumpkin!’ chat on Hallowe’en itself, which falls on Tuesday. I want to see all your carved pumpkins, all your Hallowe’en decorations, and let’s see any spooky costumes and makeup too. If there are cute kids involved…well, hey, I think we can cope with that. Please be taking snaps with all of this in mind.

To business! This is our community weekly post in which we trace the seasons together, week by week, in all of their mundanity and beauty. We kick off with readers’ comments from last week, curated and rendered by me into a kind of beautiful seasonal poem. You can join in with this for next week by pressing the comments button at the bottom of the page and leaving yours. You do not need to be a paid subscriber and everyone is very welcome.

Here is your Week 42:

Lighting the wood burner for the first time since the chimney was swept in April

A hot water bottle for my feet in bed

Misty and quiet on an early morning walk through the local cemetery, the trees every shade of autumn, a fox's bark ricocheting off the stones and trees

Getting the gutters cleared for the winter, damp misty mornings, the first washing in the tumble dryer instead of outside

Super long acorns collected in a coat pocket

The smell of autumn in the night air - sparkler smell, smoke, decaying leaves and soil, frost

Breakfast by candle light

The first frost

The last allotment runner beans, courgettes and tomatoes; still enjoying potatoes, chard, kale, garlic, onions, carrots, leeks, rocket, raspberries, pears and apples

Squally winds as the tide rises, watching windsurfers challenging the elements

Finishing a shawl with my own handspun yarn

A mesmerising autumn sunset: glowing yellows, wisps of flame orange and dusty pinks

A pumpkin farm visit: picking our carving pumpkin and filling our wheel barrow with Turks Turban, Red Kabocha and Crown Prince

Stepping outside on a cold evening and the whole street smelling of woodsmoke

Plump pork sausages with champ & gravy for dinner

Gently laundering all my winter scarves - an annual ritual producing the most beautiful soft rainbow of washing

Two lots of delicious fig crumble, with fennel in the crumble and olive oil instead of butter from a recipe by Mark Diacono

The insistent babbling of the brook after all of the rain

Packing away summer clothes and sandals and getting down the woollies and boots from the loft

The jackdaws gathering on the roof waiting for next door to throw them some scraps

Waxing leaves with beeswax for leaf garlands

Sweet potato and chilli soup

Wellies now firmly on for all walks

Feeling lucky, warm and comfortable, watching the wild weather and planning comfort food for friends

Taking the last tomatoes off of the plants and clearing the greenhouse, laying cardboard down on all the dormant beds. Putting the garden to bed for the winter.

Buying lovely unusual squashes, pumpkins and gourds at the market to create a seasonal decoration around the front door

Trying out the new heated blanket, resisting putting the heating on. Double socks and jumpers

Bright blue skies, brightly colourful leaves, a visit to the state fair with the children

Opening the curtains first thing to pitch-black windy skies and eating our breakfast with all the cosy lamps switched on

Laid low with a virus and snoozing on the settee with my cat friend. Listening to the rain rattling against the windows. Herbal teas and spoonfuls of honey.

Autumn leaves clinging on by their finger tips. The rattle of chestnuts falling on the barn roof replaced with the thunderous rhythms of rain drops on roof lights

Turning the tomatoes into two types of tomato ketchup and dehydrating the courgettes into crisps to store

Harvesting fennel for crunchy salads for the next few weeks, like finding the last green of summer

Wind blown at Fistral Bay watching the powerful waves thinking over and over one more minute and I will go in for a nice hot coffee

Utterly beautiful. I get lost in these every week.

Now my turn. Here’s my Week 43:

Winter fields

We went away at the weekend and stayed in a place surrounded by farmland. I loved the beautiful starkness of the ploughed winter fields. I know, ecological desert and all that but still, if I was an artist I might paint this.

I believe in fairies for 20 minutes

I am always looking for folk stories for my almanacs, and this means that I have read more than my fair share of stories about fairies, because there are a lot of them. I don’t mean our common perception of fairies, the pretty, twinkly things the Victorians turned them into. Fairies in the old stories are mean, they are freaky, they have their own set of rules, their own territories, and they are ruthless to those who transgress or trespass. They enchant and sprinkle magic, and they also covet and carry off beautiful human things: babies in particular, pretty young maidens, fair-haired princes, you know the sort of thing.

Anyway, as part of one of our aforementioned walks at the weekend, me, my husband and the two dogs turned down an old Roman road. Suddenly the air was filled with tiny silver threads, trailing diagonally across the path from top right to bottom left, hundreds upon hundreds of loose spiders’ threads, all the way down the path ahead of us, backlit by the sun, even glinting slightly rainbow here and there. It was utterly magical. I stopped to take a picture. (Yes, the picture above, in which you can see NO silver threads. That exact one.) And then we stood in awe for couple of minutes, just watching it and marvelling.

And then when we snapped out of it and started walking one of the dogs was gone! The beautiful, white, fluffy dog that everybody admires and wants to touch. Yes, exactly the sort of dog the fairies would be all over. We set off down the trail thinking she had run on through the woodland on the side of the path, calling and calling, and then my husband carried on and I started back, calling and calling. She was absolutely nowhere to be seen. I’m embarrassed to admit that for a few moments there I really kind of started to think…

Anyway to cut an already long story slightly shorter when we got back to the house the little horror had found her own merry way back and been tied up outside by the builder next door. She was covered in mud from head to toe and had clearly been having the time of her life rootling around in badger setts or god knows where. No fae folk involved, just her own awful self. But yeah, for 20 minutes there…

The seasonal thing - in case you didn’t spot it - is: spiders’ threads! Lots and lots of them (honestly, they really were there…).

Indoor gloves

To bring us back down to earth. My hands get freezing while typing and this is the week when I dug out my fingerless gloves to work in. I have since lost them! I am so annoying. And cold fingered. Maybe that was them too… You can have the dog back, but we’re taking the gloves…

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That’s it from me, so tell me: what you spotted/eaten/smelt this week that made it particularly ‘this week’? I can’t wait to hear. Please leave your comments below.