Officially Cold

The clocks have gone back to GMT and everything was covered in frost for the past few mornings. Halloween/Samhain is tomorrow, there has already been snow in the Scottish Highlands, and I'm wondering if the predictions that we're going to have a hard winter will be correct.

I've started to feel the cold (I normally run quite hot) so it's my cue to break out the wool socks, long sleeves, scarves, coats, jumpers and crochet blankets on the sofa. I'm not complaining; I love the changing seasons.

Autumn seemed to be a warm and gradual thing. We've had a lot of rain, but on the sunny days, I was distracted by spiders every time I went into the garden. Digging out compost bin #2 took a while, distracted as I was by the wildlife. So many fat, female Araneus diadematus hanging in their webs! I also found some other well-marked female spiders, but was confused about what they were until I had one in a magnifier pot and used an online resource. Even so, I couldn't get enough magnification to determine whether they were Metellina mengei or M segmentata. There were a few other spiders and harvestmen which I've not identified yet.

I don't know when the swallows slipped away this year. The local ones just disappeared at some point in September, and I saw some tail-enders fleeing westwards while I was driving over the Preselis, the weekend of the Autumn Equinox. The swifts seemed to disappear suddenly in mid-August. There were lots of blackberries this year (the best, as always, completely inaccessible) and lots of wasps. And yet again, I was completely useless with recording butterflies!

I saw potato plants flowering in the second of the free-standing compost heaps and a few weeks later dug out enough for a couple of meals. I really must get a grip on the vegetable and fruit growing next year. While I've been concentrating on the front garden this summer, the back garden has rewilded itself.

The new houses on the field behind me are still being built. During the summer, the work sometimes started at 7.30 am. No-one could accuse the builders of throwing these houses up! There is still ground-work going on (I don't know if they've finished laying the road) and the heap of subsoil nearest my back fence is taller than ever. Internal work has been going on for weeks now, and annoyingly, some of the lights get left on overnight. The buildings have been painted in candy colours which seem to glow in low light. In my opinion, it doesn't make them any less of an eyesore.

The view from my bedroom, 23 October 2018. 

There's still a way to go with them. According to the planning, there will be some young trees planted, bird boxes put up and gaps left in the soffits for roosting bats, to improve biodiversity. I wonder how long it will be before they, and the houses themselves, are inhabited.

Garden Plans - Still on the Drawing Board

I haven't drawn out neat plans for the garden yet, but had formed some definite ideas about the way the front and back gardens might look. The wisdom of living in and with your space has asserted itself recently, as my ideas have changed.

In the back garden, I had an idea for a second path curving from the left side of the patio up to the shed, which sits two-thirds of the way up the garden on the right, and branching off to (eventually) a greenhouse on the left mirroring the placement of the shed. A perspective path, it would start wider than it finished, hopefully fooling the eye into thinking the garden is longer than it actually is. However, it would have required a potager-style arrangement for the vegetable growing, and I was having difficulty envisaging how to place the fruit. Once I started sowing and planting out the vegetables, I remembered how practical it is to have fixed, rectangular beds, maximising the space to plant in blocks or rows (considering that I want lots of veg, not just the odd item here and there) and facilitating rotation and soil preparation. I couldn't make that work with a path curving through the space.

Then I became quite fascinated by the internal geometries in the garden space. The garden (excluding the patio) is approximately 9.35 x 14 metres, which is about half a standard allotment plot. The length is about 1.5 times the width, and I decided that I would divide the space into thirds; the first for the shrubs, flowers and herbs, the middle section for the veg, and the end for the shed, compost, greenhouse, and fruit (although the latter may spread slightly into the other sections). The area for the veg is going to be roughly 5.4 x 4.6 metres or approximately 24.75 square metres.  I'll need 6 beds for rotation, (1.4 x 1.7 metres to allow for narrow paths between, or perhaps 3 strips 1.4 m wide x 3.8 long, with a virtual divide halfway up each bed?)

I haven't changed my mind about having herbs close to the house, arranged in two quarter circles either side of the path. Mints, lemon balm, parsley, chives and Welsh onion on the right, where the south-side fence and the side extension cast some shade. A couple of friends have reminded me to ensure I plant the mints in a sunken pot to constrain them, but I haven't had a mint patch yet which supplies as much as I can use when I start making mint tea, tzatziki and various salads. The area is currently covered by membrane and gravel, so I hope there is soil under there, and not concrete a few inches down. On the left, in an arc around the washing line, will be the herbs which like better drainage. The heavy soil has been improved in the past as there is lots of top-dressing gravel in the soil, but it will need more grit and some horticultural sand, and probably a top-dressing of grit too.

One of the most difficult things will be choosing what to plant by way of shrubs and flowers, due to limited space. Looking at my notes, I see recurrent themes:

• sensory (primarily scent, but also colour, sound, textures, taste)
• a 'twilight/moonlight' area close to the house using white and pastel shades which reflect light and with night-scented flowers such as stocks
• richer shades between the mints and the lilac
• roses and more roses
• perhaps some dye plants?
• buddleias for the butterflies
• other food plants for insects (although when it comes to larval food plants for the butterflies and moths, it gets a bit difficult - but some sacrificial flowers such as nasturtiums might distract from the brassicas!)

Actually, that doesn't narrow things down very much, if at all! There are plants which aren't scented, which I really want to include, and excuse them on the basis of texture in terms of contrasting leaf shapes and colours, or because they attract pollinators. Things like Stachys lanata, with the silvery, furry leaves (definitely by the path in the 'moonlight' section). And although once the lime green, frothy heads are past their best and flop untidily everywhere, Alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle) is a must because of the way moisture beads and collects on the leaves - irresistible! And aquilegias, polemonium, Siberian iris, bugle, any type of poppies, cottage garden annuals such as cornflowers and nigella (love-in-a-mist). And foxgloves, Verbena bonariensis, and I might need something to continue the colour into autumn. I have lots of primulas and grape hyacinths in spring, just because they seem to like it here, but currently I have nothing for winter, scented or otherwise. I shall have to think about that. Can I make space for a small pond somewhere too?

In the front garden, I wanted to create something scented, bright and colourful which would lift the spirits of passers-by. Originally, I was inspired by Monty and Sarah Don's Jewel Garden, and envisaged bright and jewel colours (not just greening grey Britain but splashing it with multi-coloured paint!). It's quite a small space, approximately 5.3 x 4.5 metres, surrounded by a low wall on three sides and the house on the fourth side. (I've just done a double-take at those figures - it's almost the size of the veg patch!) Anyway, I thought that a rainbow mix of colour might be a bit much in the space, so decided to go with mainly shades of yellow, orange, blue, purple. Mainly, that is, because there's a crimson rose one one side of the door, which I shall pick up with a scarlet oriental poppy on the other side, and I suspect some red monarda will find its way into the planting (though I intend to keep pinks to the back garden!). A path needs to carry on across the front of the house, to the gas meter, but after that, I'll need a pathway which will give a little space and working access to the planting without being too fussy. Something based on a quarter circle, an echo of the herb arcs, considering this is almost the same size as one of the thirds of the back garden? Another thing to think about, as well as ensuring the planting has something of interest for autumn and winter.

After all the recent coverage of Chelsea and Chatsworth's show gardens, it's easy to think of gardens as things which are created, springing into being over a matter of weeks so that you can just enjoy the space and maintain it a bit, like mowing the lawn. Indeed, that's possible if you throw money and a team of landscape gardeners at the project. But, as Monty Don reminded us in this week's Gardener's World, gardening is a process. Working on my own and with next to no budget, it's going to be a long process, but between working in the garden, enjoying its produce, planning and dreaming, it will also be hugely pleasurable and fulfilling one!

Season of Mists and Musings

It's the start of October already, and 'tis the season for dark evenings, finding the winter woolies and snuggling in front of the TV to watch Strictly Come Dancing! The Autumn Equinox came and went, and with it a review of my quarterly To Do list, which is as long as ever. Will I ever achieve my goals? The project to reclaim my sewing desk and sort out my sewing notions has been ongoing for a few months now - nearly there! But I'm still getting cross at the chaos, and particularly since there are items I still haven't found (and some bits which I unpacked before I had a place to put them, and now I can't find them again!)

Summer flew by in a whirl of belly dance festival, covering LIFT classes, summer school, gardening, planning classes and workshops for the Autumn term and an absence of beach time, because whenever I was up for it, the weather was not. Most of the time I seemed to be either dripping with sweat (having exercised/danced/gardened) or feeling a bit chilly.

There have been comments on Gardeners' Question Time and Gardener's World about it not being a very good summer, weather-wise (again!), which is some consolation - it's not just my imagination. There's a tub-trug in the garden which I haven't been using for weeding, instead leaving it to gather rain water so that every so often, I can dip plant pots or my watering can into it. It got down to a quarter full before it was topped up again, and is now brim-full. I've been loving the hour-long Gardener's World programmes, and shall miss them when they finish for the season.

The pink rose is definitely a keeper, just not where it's currently growing. The scent is better than I thought and it's growing strongly. It sends up shoots nearly as tall as I am, which bend over, and then new shoots 'break' from the stem in the style of some of the older roses. It's rather sprawly and would probably grow up and through another shrub. I'm still researching what it is, while wondering why that matters to me!

The Buddleia under the washing line obviously got its roots down this year and grew terrifically, in some places over two metres of growth in one year. This is without any feeding, so the soil must be quite fertile (everything in the garden soil grew quite lushly this year, must have been a bit of relative warmth and wet). Some of the flower spikes were roughly half a metre long! In mid to end August, the flowers were frequently covered in butterflies; beautiful fresh Large Whites, Small Tortoiseshells, Peacocks, Red Admirals, and Painted Ladies. I so enjoyed having a cuppa, sitting on the swing seat to watch them, or standing next to the flowers and listening to the butterfly wings as they fluttered around. Sheer joy!

The Buddleia made so much growth that it was summer brittle, with shoots breaking every time there was some wind. The last blow brought down one of the very large main branches; split at the base, and is now wilting drunkenly across the patio. I suspect the way it's been growing means that transplanting it may be difficult, but I'll probably pot it up for the winter just to get it out from under the line, as I really need to plant out the herb bed before it gets too cold and wet. Some of the marjoram, thyme and the fennel rotted off in their nice, free-draining pots this summer. I already have a bag of horticultural grit to work in, and some stone to top dress as well. While I've been digging it over, I keep coming across pockets of richer soil with pea gravel, presumably where things have been planted in the past.

The other thing blocking progress of the herb bed is the Crocosmia. I had seriously considered putting the whole lot on the compost heap, but a couple of friends said that they would like some plants of that and anything else that was going begging from the garden. Then, I saw it against the purple Buddleia, and the bees going in and out of the tubular flowers, and decided that some can go in the front garden.

The bit of digging I have done in both the front and back gardens has revealed stony clay soil, not the easiest thing to work with. I rather like doing a bit of digging (or perhaps it's weeding and turning over, considering that I have to use a fork!) and find I can manage an hour before really needing a sit-down. But that's when the soil's not horribly wet from rain in the preceding days. It makes me wonder how plants which like a nice root run, such as the roses, will cope. My plan to have raised beds for vegetables now seems like a necessity.

The mellow fruitfulness is a bit lacking. The young gooseberry plants were completely defoliated by sawfly larvae which I didn't notice until they had done their worst, as if they appeared one day and stripped the plants overnight. I've had some good courgettes, but many seem to have suffered from some kind of blossom-end rot and the ubiquitous slugs and snails. The aubergine had trouble flowering, because every time it grew one, its stem was bitten through by the marauding molluscs. The first few 'snack size' cucumbers were surprisingly good, since when the molluscs have devoured all the developing fruits. I didn't get any spinach or lettuces. Other gardening friends have commented on the apparently huge numbers of slugs this year. Something will have to be done! I've picked the French beans as they've been produced, but the plants weren't very bushy or floriferous. The outdoor tomatoes have had real trouble ripening and it looks like I'll have to pick the remainder (which is most of them!) while green and see if they'll ripen indoors. At least the plants haven't succumbed to blight, and the ripe tomatoes I've had have been wonderful! Only a couple actually made it back into the kitchen! I'll have to look up the variety of the yellow cherry tomato, the flavour was superb.

I was awoken at dawn on 1st September by a skein of geese honking overhead. Misty mornings, shorter days, a new school term and fat Garden Spiders Araneus diademata crouching in the centres of their dewy webs; all signalling the change of season. There has been a noticeable drop in temperature in the past week, and today's east wind combined with no sunshine means the house is fully 5 degrees colder than it was. I'm wearing layers in an effort to delay putting the heating on.

The swallows have gone, of course. I was aware of them leaving for a while, feeding as they went. Each time I saw them, I wondered if  it was the last until they return next April. In fact, the last time I saw some was nearly a fortnight ago on 24th September (the latest I've ever seen any), silhouetted against grey clouds and blown sideways if they dared to deviate from their course in the hope of catching an insect. Making wishes for their safety, I watched them as they flew east over the fields, until the black specks merged with the sky .

The Hawthorns are loaded with berries. I've heard several people speculating that the berry load means that it will be a hard winter. In the past few weeks, there was a day when the media (including the BBC) was full of headlines stating that it was the 'hottest day of the year' (and there have been a few very hot days this year). Well, it might have been for London and the home counties, but it was pretty miserable, overcast and a little chilly here. I went out and drove back in heavy rain, so I stayed in the car, listening to the radio for a few minutes, (complete with swearing at the 5.00 pm news headlines 'It's the hottest day of the year!'), waiting for the downpour to ease off  rather than get drenched in the few metres between car and front door. The water was coming off next-door's roof in a sheet. I scurried into the house and up to the office, to find friends in the West Midlands and north west England posting photos of flash flooding and talking about dramatic thunder and lightning.

Here are some garden highlights from mid August to early September, as a reminder of the warmth and colour; Scented Geranium flower, Crocosmia, Red Admiral on Buddleia (the colour difference on the wings is because one is a little back-lit), Evening Primrose, a cluster of at least 35 buds and flowers on the pink rose mentioned above, Small Tortoiseshells on the Buddleia, the Campanula posharskyana flowering again (I cut it back after its first flush of flowers to tidy it up), a fuzzy buzzy bumble bee in a Campanula flower, and one of the long Buddleia flower spikes against a blue sky while a flock of Jackdaws swirled around.

Bye-bye Summer! Welcome, Autumn!

Catching Up

After a hectic few months of getting so busy that the butterfly count and moth night passed me by, teaching (with an inspection, just to keep me on my toes), doing courses and exams, nursing a sick hen (who got better for a couple of weeks, then went downhill again and has just died), hosting a special guest for a couple of nights, and all the preparation and rehearsals for the Cardigan Belly Dance Festival, (more on the latter two in other posts), I feel like I've reached a break point.

Not that there is now any less to do.  I have a few costume and jewellery commissions, a stack of paperwork to deal with, next term's classes to advertise and plan, a mountain of cleaning and laundry to do. I've made in-roads into the 'To Do' list, but it is still growing faster than the 'Done' list. I really want to reverse that, because it is getting on my nerves. Still, the lack of appointments looming in the diary helps me to feel that I have time to tackle the jobs in the house and garden. Time to catch up a little on this blog, where I'm still failing in my resolution to reduce the number of posts in draft. Time to finish projects and perhaps start new ones. Time to breathe and try to catch up a bit.

A teaching friend and I planned to go to the beach during the school summer holidays, but I realised with a  shock that this weekend is the August Bank Holiday, and she starts back at school a week later. In the meantime, she's on holiday with her husband, after which she's taking her mother away for a few days. We had some very hot weather in June and July - I remember sitting in stuffy classrooms, emerging into hot and dazzling sunlight at lunch time, and even wore skirts and dresses, as a cool change from my usual yoga pants. I got utterly fed up with my long, straggly hair and had it cut into a short bob, which is so much easier to manage and I love so much, I wonder why I didn't do it earlier. I commented on how unseasonably cool it was in my single post in June. Lammas brought a change back to unsettled weather, with patches of sunshine interrupted by drizzle, rain showers, downpours, thunderstorms and hail. The forecast yesterday was for ground frost in some rural parts of Wales - a month early!

There are still plenty of swallows around, but they seem to be flying south and east already. I saw my first group of thrushes while driving through the Preselis on Sunday evening and could smell September in the air, in mid-August. As the days shorten, I'm hoping that Summer hasn't given up altogether and that we'll have some more good weather to enjoy before Autumn truly begins.

Autumn Leaves 'Thing' - Finished!

At long last, I've finished 'The Autumn Leaves Thing', which is now a sort of scarf or stole.  The leaves were blocked, but started to curl again, and it turned out that sewing them together added a sort of 3D effect which made it difficult to pick out the leaf shapes and left it looking like some knitted patchwork, which is exactly what it is. I had the idea from a patchwork I saw in a magazine, years ago. However, what works in woven cotton fabric is just not the same in knit and I would not do this again, nor would I recommend it.  Just don't go there!

At least it's quite warm and snuggly. I've hand-washed it, to see whether the colours are fast (not quite) and to reduce the itchy tickliness of the mohair. Greebo loves it - if I happen to leave it around anywhere, I come back to find him lying on it.

So happy to have finished it, I wrapped it around me and took a (very rare!) selfie!

Cold and Frosty vs Warm and Woolly

I can't remember whether I've had to deal with frosty car windows yet this autumn, but it seems to me that last Wednesday was the first 'real' frosty morning here.  If that's true, then it was really late.  Suddenly, any leaves which managed to cling on after the high winds a couple of weeks ago have turned more vivid colours. The temperature is dropping and the weather forecast is for a very cold snap in the next couple of days.  The cats look at me sadly when the radiators are off and/or their bowls are empty.  They are more reluctant to go out and quickly come back in, eager to dry their cold, wet paws on a warm human, preferably one with a warm towel to dry them off.

Time for thick jumpers, hats, scarves, socks, and all things snuggly, including an urge to knit!  Oooh, yes, I need some fingerless gloves, and a cowl, and I wanted to learn to knit socks, and another hat might be nice, and what about some sort of woolly earwarmer headband, and a hot water bottle cover, and legwarmers, and a knitted dress and there's that wonderful cabled sweater I was going to make ....

I love cables! It's the thing I have for Celtic knotwork. The sweater appears to be cabled all over, is quite long with a big collar and takes a lot of yarn. Cue browsing in a few online knitting shops. Eeek! Even in a fairly cheap wool, it will cost around £75?  Is it my imagination, or was knitting wool relatively cheaper a long time ago? There seemed to be a point in the late '70s where the cost of yarn to knit a jumper seemed expensive against the price of jumpers in the shops. I remember knitting a chunky jumper as a present for a friend in the early '80s, and finding the money for the yarn was more difficult than knitting the jumper! Perhaps I'll have to do some serious research into online yarn shops and find a wool mix yarn to use for that sweater.  My local yarn store specialises in Rowan yarns, which are gorgeous and out of my budget, even when on sale. Something in me rebels against using 100% acrylic for this and the other lovely cabled jumpers I've seen, even though acrylics now are often better quality than the soapy-feeling '70s yarns which pilled as soon as you looked at them and stretched after washing. The cabled sweater needs three or four sizes of circular knitting needles, which of course I don't have. And of course, if those sizes don't give you the correct tension swatch result, just change needle sizes ... which I still don't have! Rules of the stash - you have all sorts of things except that which you specifically need. I might have to treat myself to a set of interchangeable circular needles just to get a selection of sizes and cable lengths in one fell swoop.  I managed to find some 'sets' of dpns at a charity shop a while ago, but never see circular needles.

Yes, the stash, which reminds me of other projects on hold and which I should complete before I start any more.  I discovered an unfinished cardigan in 4 ply when I was sorting out a box this summer (in a shade of blue I would not normally go for and I don't know what size I was making. What was I thinking?). Not to mention a bag of fleece which needs dealing with, because I am going to learn to spin. So to satisfy my knitting urge, I've picked up my mohair autumn leaves thing again.  I still haven't decided what to do with it, because I'm very bored with it, but I feel like I've put in too much work just to junk it. I was thinking along the lines of a shrug, but I don't think what I had in mind will work. One of this week's jobs will be to take a few of the leaves and see what size they are after blocking. Note to self: just get over it and learn to do colourwork. Aran has always seemed so easy to me, and  Fairisle so complicated, but lots of people do it so how hard can it be?

I might have to have a go at some fingerless gloves too, because my hands get so cold (honest!) ... but only if I promise to myself to use yarn and needles from my stash!

The Pursuit of Happiness

This is something quite close to my heart, as life is too short to be unhappy.  I have a few friends who are quite depressed at the moment, and some others who become sadder and feel the urge to hibernate as the season changes and the days grow shorter.
Depression is a deep and difficult subject. Whatever the cause, it doesn't respond to the advice to 'pull yourself together', often given by those who probably don't have a clue. I realised yesterday, with a little help from my friends, that there are some things I have been doing and which, over the years, have helped me mellow considerably, remain optimistic and become happier.  So, while I finish my breakfast and before I scrub my hands and start dealing with metres of fine silk, I thought I would share.

It was Friday 13th yesterday, and although I'm not superstitious, I should have known better than to think things would go to plan.  I dashed out in the afternoon to go to the bank, but the journey took longer than anticipated because of lots of traffic, all sensibly taking the rainy, greasy roads at a reasonably slow pace.  Having arrived in town, I found the bank's doors locked - they now close an hour earlier than they used to. Then I remembered I was going to do the recycling while I was out, but forgot to put the box in the car.  A 22 mile round trip for nothing, I whined later on Facebook. A friend responded 'But you're still smiling. I like that about you.' Actually, I was, because it seemed like I was the butt of some celestial joke, probably designed to teach me not to get distracted, thinking about the moth caterpillars which were stripping another friend's weeping cherry tree when I should have been getting my own butt in gear. Spooky how he knew I was smiling, but his simple statement made me all feel all warm inside. Actually, I still feel all warm inside from it.

So here's the first couple of things:

• Smile.  Grit your teeth if you have to, but find something to smile about.  Smile at yourself in the mirror.  You smile at friends, don't you?  Surely you must be your own friend? And ...
• Say something nice to someone (or yourself) to give them a reason to smile.

Another friend posted: If you keep your food in a refrigerator, your clothes in a closet, have a bed to sleep in and a roof over your head, you are richer than 75% of the world's population'. Whether this is true or not, it's about counting your blessings and feeling gratitude, which itself is about focusing on positives and not taking things for granted.  I used to find this difficult when I was feeling depressed, until I started to tell myself things could be worse, I could be living in a war zone (or substitute your worst nightmare). So:

• Be grateful, for anything or anyone at all.

And lastly for today:

• Be kind to yourself and give yourself something to look forward to and feel excited about.

This is particularly important if you feel stuck in a rut and/or swamped with things you have to do.  It could be anything, however small.  As an exercise, make a quick list of several things which you like, just the first things which come into your head. It doesn't need to be a long list. They could be the simplest things, and it may only be things which you feel like at the moment - next week's list could be different. (But if you are struggling to find more than one or two things, please, go to see your GP as soon as you can about your depression.  Seriously.)  Not things you would like in an ideal world (like winning several million on the lottery).  These need to be SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.  What does that mean?  Well, take the first thing on my list below. Specific: not just toast, but hot, buttered, white toast. Measurable: how much toast?  Well, one or two rounds would do. Achievable: yes, I have the bread, butter and toaster. Realistic: I'm supposed to be watching my weight and I know wholemeal bread would be better for me, but a couple of rounds of white toast is not going to hurt much in the great scheme of things, so yes. Time-bound: in other words, when? Well, today, while the bread's still fresh, but not necessarily every day.

Here's my quick list:

• Hot, buttered, white toast
• A nice cup of tea
• The smell of lavender
• Fresh sheets
• Cuddles with my cats
• The warmth from a hot water bottle
• Flowers
• Butterflies and moths

The next thing is to do them.  In fact, not just do them, but really appreciate, enjoy and take pleasure in doing them, whether one at a time or several at the same time.  For example, I could snuggle with a hot water bottle into fresh sheets smelling of lavender with a nice cup of tea and some hot, buttered, white toast while cuddling my cats.  Or just have the toast, which in fact is what I did this morning for breakfast.  You could aim for one a day, or one a week. Let them inspire you to other things which you would enjoy. The bit about flowers and butterflies might seem non-specific, but I paused on my morning stagger around the barns to appreciate a few butterflies out on the buddleias in the morning sun. While I was thinking of my list, I had a flash of another friend's 'happy' list and I decided to use some ribbon (that I'd been wondering what best to do with) to make her favourite flower. I shall very much enjoy creating that and sending it to her as a surprise, which, I hope, will make her smile.

Welcoming the Dark

It doesn't seem like six minutes since the equinox, let alone six weeks, and it's November already!
The third and last harvest, Nos Galan Gaeaf (the first of winter), Halloween, Samhain, the start of the dark half of the year - quite literally, too, now that the clocks have gone back to good old Greenwich Mean Time.  Mostly the weather is still grey and wet, so it seems to be getting dark from about mid-afternoon.  It's also chilly and the itching caused by my cold-induced urticaria has been driving me mad.  It just makes me want to find somewhere warm to hibernate

In the past six weeks, the last of the swallows have fled to warmer climes, and the starlings and thrushes have appeared, chattering, restlessly moving between fields and trees.

I was idly wondering about the traditional Halloween colours of orange and black. Orange is so hot and lively, in strong contrast to black, which is an absence of colour, void, darkness. The glow of a fire in a dimly-lit room, or autumn bonfires, flames against a night sky.
Pumpkins appeared in the supermarkets, ready to be carved for Halloween. It makes me cross that the pumpkins are removed from the shops as soon as it's November.  It's not as if they don't store well. I bought a couple to cook with, and used one straight away, popping some in a vegetable curry and the rest in a warm and spicy pumpkin and pepper soup. It's so cold and dreary, I can't bring myself to eat salads, but I'm making up for it with fruit.
Apart from the seasonal apples, I found some persimmons, which I love when they are ripe and meltingly soft. I also picked up a pomegranate, but it's not as huge and glossy-skinned as the ones growing in Cyprus.

I usually dislike air fresheners, preferring to burn incense, but couldn't resist a scented candle which changes colour. Presumably there's a colour changing LED in the bottom of the glass which has some sort of sensor to switch it on when the candle wick is lit, and off when the flame is extinguished. It is very pretty on a window ledge, glowing, changing colours against the darkness outside the window

A trip to one of my regular charity shop haunts turned up a pair of earrings in 'antiqued' brass and crystals in autumn shades of brown and gold.  One of the dangles was hanging wonky, but all that was needed was some work on a jump ring. I noticed that the pair weren't well matched - one is brassier than the other, but they sparkle more than the photo shows and are nice to wear.
Another found object was a gold ribbon, discarded as part of some packaging. 
So I put together a little autumn-orange-themed group - persimmon, pumpkin, ribbon, earrings and candles, a cheerful blast of colour to welcome the dark.

Autumn Equinox

Autumn Equinox, Second Harvest, Mabon, the Holly King gaining strength as the Oak King weakens.  I like to mark the eight festivals of the wheel of the year, even if I don't always do anything significant.  This year, I feel more aware than usual of the changing season.  Perhaps I'm just feeling the cold more after coming back from Cyprus.  There's a difference in the air, the light has changed and it's getting darker noticeably earlier.
I haven't grown any veg this year, so I've nothing to harvest, which feels all wrong.
There were a couple of fine days (though not warm enough to dry the washing!) and cold nights, with our first frost on the equinox. Although I usually connect this time of year with harvested produce, and the warm and muted colours of turning leaves and earth, this year I felt compelled to go to a beach and make the most of the equinoctal spring tides to do some beach combing. I was looking for tusk shells Antalis entalis and saddle oyster shells Anomia ephippium as well as my usual search for sea-worn glass and other interesting shells and pebbles which could be used for jewellery.
I went to Tenby, and walked along South Beach to St Catherine's island, where the caves often collect interesting bits, but this time it was as if they had been scoured clean.  Thinking I saw a tusk shell between two stones, I picked it up.  On closer examination, it was a fossil molar tooth!  Not human, but I would need expert help to find out which animal it's from.

 














Walking back along the intertidal sand, I found a few tusk shells, as well as a lovely saddle oyster which gleamed with black and green iridescence in the low sun.  I also found some sort of spiny cockle shell, Acanthocardia echinata (at a guess), a scallop Chlamys varia, and still-joined rayed trough shell Macrtra stultorum and Faroe sunset shell Gari fervensis.










Caldey Island looked peaceful in the late afternoon sun.















As the sun went down, a crescent moon showed above the gap between Giltar Point and Caldey Island.

The following day I went down to Pendine, hoping to find some large otter shells Lutraria lutraria.  There were a few broken ones, along with some banded wedge shells Donax vittatus and a number of razor shells. The rocks and rock pools at the western end of the beach hadn't trapped much of interest, even for a few jackdaws, who complained to each other before flying off. A jersey polo-neck, scarf and fleece were not enough to stop a chilly easterly wind triggering my cold urticaria, so I trudged back to the car.


Driving back, I paused on the road down into Whitland to take pictures of the sunset. Lights were coming on in Narberth under the red sky with an inky streak of cloud.  As I neared home, a Tawny owl floated over the road, a dark shape against the dark blue sky.

A little still life to mark the season: my beach-combed shells, including some mussels, the inky blue contrasting with the mother of pearl; multicoloured  flat winkles Littorina littoralis; a small squash and apples, a chrysanthemum flower, which fell out of the bunch I bought as a treat to myself, and night lights for the nights which are drawing in.