Drifting leaves

Thank you so much to everyone's concern about the wretched headaches and responding to my begging bowl by offering to purchase cards. The head stuff seems to be down to a combination of stress and bad posture when working - I have been thankfully pain free this week, organising my life and sitting up straight. Two more designs being painted up for the Christmas cards and a goodly supply of bags and envelopes in stock.

This week we have been enjoying...heavy showers and darkened skies.

But we were pampered last week with stunning spells of late summer sunshine.

We took the bike to Winchcombe last Sunday. It was shut. All except half a dozen tea shops.

Winding homewards through the newly ploughed Snowshill area, where leggy racehorses flittered about, warmly rugged up against the winds. The earth is resting.

Nearly back at the village, we found an excellent wilding apple tree, its fruit too high to plunder. Andy found a stick...

...and we took some prisoners, later made into a sharp apple sauce. Lovely appley read here, go and be charmed.

The post has blessed me with cards from three corners of the globe - Higgledy Piggledy's delightful world, a little wood fairy dreaming in a woodland scene from dear Ms Robyn,...and September greetings from Tara (who is far too busy to be bothering about an old grump like me) also sending seeds which will be sown this month. She also sent this little sweet china heart, which has gone up with my lovely monsteroo from Becky. I am gathering a charmed work area, so that even when I have been esconced at my desk all morning, I can look up and know my friends are there, in some form.

BLOG NEWS - I have just taken part in an interesting survey about bloggers, by Sarah Pedersen, UK academic researching the blogging phenomenon, her own blog is here, where there are some interesting debates starting to happen, especially concerning female bloggers.
I will also be taking part in the UK mass blog, to create the 'biggest blog in history' on October the 17th, where as many UK bloggers as possible will write about their day, recording even the most mundane of details and particularly reflecting on the impact of history on their lives. All entries will be held as part of a mass observation, and will be kept for historians of the future to see what made us Brits tick at the beginning of the third millenium. Read all about it here, and join in!

Last days of summer

The cricket season is finally over, and the last bit of kit dried in the late summer sun. In the garden, the vegetable patch, which went somewhat crazy and jungley, is finally admitting defeat. Some of the tomato plants reached over four feet and the beans were wrapping themselves into twisted, vine-like ropes. Now the spinach has taken advantage of the wearying of the beans, and the leaves are forming a glossy green bush. I wonder if the parsnips will raise their heads or if they were smothered in the general fecundity?

We planted a variety of tomatoes, but in the end it was impossible to tell which was which...the maroon beefsteaks are 'Black from Tula' I think, and the big yellow ones might be 'Sunbelle'...or is that the little yellow plummy types? There was one called 'Cherokee' which may be rosy pink; my planting list disappeared in the big Autumn Clearout, (see below), so I have no way of knowing what is what until we clear the patch and the tags emerge. This year we discovered that slugs are not the only fruit gobblers - woodlice, which I normally tolerate, have been found munching away at the skin, leaving scabby areas, as you can see on that one down there, no, there, just to to the left, that's right, under the fat yellow one.

Everywhere farmers are ploughing their fields and the landscape is a gentle blur of tertiary tones. There seems to be a final flurry of wildlife as creatures prepeare in their own way for the onset of winter, whether it be late swallows snapping up dozy insects, or crows following the freshly dug furrows.

Even in September there are butterflies to be seen, sunning themselves on blackberry bushes, like this magnificent Red Admiral, or bobbing about over the berry speckled hedgerows. Just up the road there is a large ivy bush come into bloom, and on sunny days it is swarming with honey bees, busily gathering pollen and buzzing warmly amongst themselves. Their soft droning reminds me of quietly gossiping women, and I wonder if that is why 'quilting bees' are so named - the murmuring of many voices chatting away, accompanied by industrious sewing.

Yesterday we took a long morning walk, to catch the last of summer. There were buzzards marking out their territory with mewling cries. The youngsters are grown now, and their higher calls can be heard as they soar above what they hope will become their kingdom. A pair of deer sprang from the bushes and fled across a wide open field, their silky brown bodies barely visible against the umber earth. High up in a silver birch, fat hornets bustled about their nest in the trunk. The colony is at its peak now - after a final mating flight, the drones will die. In the end, only fertilised queens will live through the winter, to start new nests next year. Hornets are magnificent creatures. We have watched them elsewhere, taking food back to their home, with larger 'bouncers' keeping sentry duty at the nest door. Unless stupidly provoked, they are not looking for trouble, and can be observed quietly without fear of stinging.

We have seen many young frogs this year, but I have never found a baby toad. Just about an inch in length, and found crawling across the road. It sat, like a small wooden brooch in Andy's hand, before flumping off into the damp grass. Today the skies are a damp, paste grey and a moist wind harries the treetops. I think that soon we will light the first fire.

Hedgerow banquet

High Summer and the countryside basks in the sun. Miles above sea level, we are blessed with a cooling breeze which smells faintly verdant, as if the heat had leached the essence of the greenery and dispersed it on the wind. Now we near Midsummer's Day and the hedgerow banquet is in full sway. Brimmming schooners of fragrant elderflowers toast the skies, while the strumpet honeysuckle entwines her sweet tongued blossoms round stalk and branch. Fragile as snowflakes, wild roses bob prettily, blushing at the giant hogweeds insolently thrusting their musty platters from the dusty verges.

Below the salt, the common grasses are flushed with red campion and woundwort, while slender ribworts sway languidly, holding their creamy coronets high above the rabble.

A bevy of insects darts through the festivities, busily seeding a thousand rumours, burying into secret places, emerging triumphant and pollen dusted. Dainty Queen Anne's lace, which fringed the lanes in May, has coarsened to pimply seedheads and the frills of hawthorn have given way to nuggety, unripe berries. By the stream, willows lazily lower frondular tips into the cool babble, and silent trout flicker like dark ghosts in the shadows of the old stone bridge.