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fordeabbey

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The damp has crept back in and with it the temperatures have inched their way back up again. A reprieve for the dahlias and another day quietly tallied in the diary.

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This morning’s theatre of shadow puppetry. A soft floating estuary, and for once it wasn’t because of the rain.

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There’s a hardy countryside type that is unflinching when it comes to the seasons. Short sleeves in October and unbuckled by the cold air pinching at the ribs. The conversation with @_olly_hone_ yesterday could have been conducted in two entirely different seasons. An imaginary line drawn somewhere in the middle with a bundle of layers on one side and a t shirt on the other. It’s going to get a little colder was the general gist, which for one side of the line means woollen overload, and for the other probably no change at all.

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The winter squashes are piling up and their colours much like the wardrobe of the countryside. Olives and ochres speckled with pigments of iron oxide. Rustier by the day.

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A drop in temperatures and the mornings can now be measured in layers. The garden a steam bath of expiration. Hunched over sunflowers slowly smoking.

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The blackberry season might be over but rummaging in the hedgerows has only just begun. Old Man’s beard to be teased and untangled, and a circuitous route around the back lanes today found lengths of it draped like knotted scarfs. A day of sunshine and Autumn was transformed. The apple trees bedecked in juicy red baubles, and the dahlias almost twinkling. Hydrangeas always seem a bit hit and miss when it comes to drying, but dahlias? The countryside aglow and suddenly a world of possibilities.

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Toast, crumbs and a morning thickly spread with butter.

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In step with the mornings, the pace of the garden has slowed. More of a dawdle and shuffle, but still with a steely determination coursing through its veins and holding on with a vice like grip. The baton passed from the tulips, surging ahead in Spring into the arms of lofty pace setters and finally onto the dahlias and their cohorts for a slow gentle jog. A marathon through the seasons but still some energy left for something of a sprint finish.

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The footprint of Spring was taking shape this week. A size 10 boot levering the spade and heeling in some colour, and in with it a promise of the rainbow to follow in the steps of the pared back minimalism of a Winter scape. The tipping point in the year when the garden, much like Dorothy opens the door onto a world of Technicolor wonder. There’s some ramblings in the blog - link in bio.

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The scrapings from @joshua_sparkes ‘ latest IMO brew were pure gothic. A white fuzz of fungi that had been ‘grown’ in a forest in a box of half cooked rice half covered in leaves. All very Tuesday morning, but some words to follow if there’s an appetite for it?

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April, May and October are similar in many ways. One fresh, the other fading so maybe not something to be measured in vigour and energy, but the light. Soft, ethereal and an angle low enough to be piercing even with a visor firmly clamped down in place. And bulbs. Spanning both the seasons. One in preparation for the other. On another rainy day six months ago @nickbailey365 and @joshua_sparkes talked tulips and Spring tapestries - on Gardener’s World this Friday at 8pm.

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The plugs are in unison in the potting shed. Flick the light switch and the radio crackles into life. A smell of earthiness and the new beginnings of Spring. In packets, in pots and scribbled in the pages of a little pocket note book. But it’s the drying onions that make you take a bigger step in time. Backwards, into the shoes of a five year old self in a moment.

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There are whisperings of a frost and a cold winter ahead. The hard skins of the onions say so, and it’s written in the height of the teasels and burdock - very tall for this year apparently.

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The day finally came into focus yesterday a little before noon - the morning all but swallowed up by the fog. The bend and stoop of autumn wildly exaggerated in a Dickensian sloop and only amplified by an imagination fuelled by shapes looming large. Spectres that vanished the moment the sun finally burst through and @clivenichols burst into song. It’s what happens after a 4am start and a four hour wait for sunrise.

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The kettle was on its third round before the day finally lurched into gear and the sunshine gathered enough muster to bore a hole in the thick blanket of fog that had settled in and tucked itself around the morning with neatly folded hospital corners. The shapes and shadows - live on stories with @clivenichols for company.

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Autumn proper from last year, when there was a crunch under foot rather than a squelch. It’s hard not to feel a little cheated by a season that’s given us more mist than mellow and more practice than is strictly necessary in the art of bog snorkelling.

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There must have been a half time bell semi audible in the depths of yesterday afternoon. A brief respite before the cloak and gloves went back on and the mizzle resumed.

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You could almost forget the mud and mire of the morning were it not for the damp and dripping debris.

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Rain and it’s rhythmic pit patting on the roof and in the puddles. A constant drum that is beginning to seep into the bones of October. Cats and dogs, although even the cats are keen to sit this one out and the dogs are a heap by the aga.

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Nice weather for lichen.....so went the conversation. We were idling under an archway, the equivalent to an evasive tidying a bottom draw. Anything but the stair rods outside. As random as the turn of conversation, you could trace the lichen around the arch and roughly down to shoulder level where it abruptly stopped. Something to do with the human body and thoroughfares. The conversation swerved and went off in the direction of chestnuts and walnuts, foraging and roasting and inevitably ended up with a fire lit in anticipation.

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