I is for Introspection

Autumn has arrived, and with it comes the annual invitation to become thoughtful.  There is something about autumn that encourages introspection. Perhaps it is the cooler evenings, or the golden light, or the fact that there are fewer opportunities to sit outside pretending I am gardening

As I said a few days ago, trees have the right idea. They simply let go of things without worrying about it.  But I am not a tree.

I find myself thinking about the year so far. What have I done? What have I enjoyed? What have I learned?

I’d planned quite a few days out but the excessive heat made them seem very unappealing.  I’ve learned not to over plan for this woman proposes, God disposes.  I have learned that what I have thought of as excessive heat is just a good reason to laze. 

And maybe the best thing I can do is to look at autumn herself.  Life doesn’t have to be about constantly growing, achieving and improving.  Sometimes the best thing to do is simply to slow down and enjoy being. 

H is for harvest

 

When I was a little girl I always went to my grandparents farm for a week in the summer holidays.  I liked it to be at the end of the holidays as at the end of August the barley harvest would start.

This year the barley and most of the wheat in this area was harvested before the end of July.  That was largely because this has been such a hot, dry year (and yields have not been good) but seed producers have bred grains which mature earlier than many older varieties.  Fields around here have not only been harvested: they have been ploughed and harrowed and I think seeds have been sown ready for next year.

But my garden brings its own harvest too.  Two or three times each week I have been cooking tomatoes and making my own puree.  It will be used as the basis for soups and sauces throughout the winter.  My precious butternut squash is still in the garden but soon it will come in.  This year I've grown French beans  and I think I have had a better yield than friends who have grown runner beans.  My leeks are OK but don't look overly wonderful.  Beetroot will soon be brought in and salad leaves have given me poor returns.

I decided against carrots and broad beans this year: carrots because they are so cheap in the shops and broad beans because I hate the black fly.

My freezer is packed to the gunwales: I feel truly blessed.  

G is for ginger

There are some things in life that I feel I ought to like.  Ginger is one of them.  

It is supposed to be wonderfully good for you. It is warming, soothing, invigorating.   It turns up in healthy recipes, herbal teas and many other worthy comestibles.

But I feel very ambivalent about it

I’m OK with garlic and ginger in a stir fry or even a little bit in my Christmas pud.  But ginger biscuits, ginger flapjack, ginger cake (or parkin) – no. 

And people are very enthusiastic about it.  “You’d really like my home-made ginger biscuits”  they say.  Not if the bikkies taste of ginger, thank you.

No, I don’t want it fresh.  Forget crystallised ginger.  No sprinkling on melon.

It is supposed to be so good for us but I have reached the age where I feel entitled to a few food preferences. I am quite happy to eat vegetables, fruit, porridge and all the other things that sensible adults are apparently supposed to enjoy. I will make an effort. I will try new things.

But ginger?  No thank you.  When I was a child the rule was that I had to eat a little of everything but one of the small freedoms of getting older is knowing that I don't have to like everything.

 

F is for Foraging

I hope no-one will say that I am mean but my favourite price for anything is NOTHING!  And one of the best ways of getting something for nothing is to go foraging.  

When I was a child, I loved finding field mushrooms on my grandparents’ farm.  It could be a slightly hazardous occupation as the creepy crawlies could have got there first, but there were always lots left for greedy little girls like me.

Apples grew freely in our garden but blackberries were foraged from hedgerows around the farm.  My favourite fruit pie is still blackberry and apple.  With cream.   There’s an abundance of blackberries in the rough patch of land next to my house and I’ve been having a few.  Apples are very plentiful here and my friends are very happy to let me have some. 

There was a sweet chestnut tree on the farm but hazelnuts had to be foraged.  They were so much more precious than the ones in the shops. 

There’s a good source of sloes in a local churchyard and I  pick them in the years I want to make sloe gin.  It’s a lovely warming drink on a February evening.  I don’t pick anything at the roadside or hedges around fields which have been sprayed as I feel there could be quite a bit of pollution on or in the fruit.

These days foraging is more difficult for me as the trundle truck can’t get me close to worthwhile natural larders but I’m so glad that I did it while I could.

Praise God for the harvest - a wider view

 

Praise God for the harvest of farm and of field

Praise God for the people who gather their yield

The long hours of labour the skills of a team

The patience of science, the power of machine

 

Praise God for the harvest that’s sent from afar

From market and harbour, from tropical shore

Foods packaged and transported and planted and grown

By God given neighbours, unseen and unknown.

 

Praise God for the harvest that comes from the ground

By drill or by mineshaft, by opencast mound;

For oil and for iron, for copper and coal

Praise God who in love has provided them all.

 

Praise God for the harvest of science and skill;

The urge to discover, create and fulfil;

For all new inventions that promise to gain

A future more hopeful, a world more humane.

 (Brian Wren)

(Tune: Away in a manger)

E is for evenings

There is something rather lovely about an autumn evening.

People are beginning to remark that the nights are drawing in.  Summer evenings feel endless which is just as well as the demands of the garden are also endless.  Autumn feels a little more laid-back. 

When autumn evenings are becoming a little chilly it feels good to come indoors, make a hot drink and put my feet up.  Soon I shall find the LED candles which will make things even more cosy

Autumn evenings are slower.  I’m very happy to stay at home.  Some evenings there’s rain and I’m more than happy to stay at home.  I can sew, knit, listen to podcasts or audiobooks.  No pressure.

I hold out as long as possible before switching on the heating, but that first time will bring a feeling of cosiness and comfort.  I no longer have a coal fire but the glow from my pretend fire will bring a sense of well-being. 

So here’s to autumn evenings: warm slippers, glowing lamps, mugs of soup, cosy chairs, good books and absolutely no obligation to be anywhere.

D is for deciduous trees

 I rather like deciduous trees.  They’re fitting in with my life quite well at the moment.  Trees know when their leaves have become clutter and they get rid!  They have no sentimental attachment to their leaves; they don’t think that the foliage might be handy in February.  They do one last, beautiful thing and then get rid of the lot. 

My tree of the year is hanging on to its leaves. 

I find it hard to be so ruthless!

I can’t look at a cupboard and think, “Right, vase, you’ve served your purpose, off you go.”  My stuff isn’t quite so obliging.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if my possessions could create a last, wonderful display like trees do.  Would that make everything easier?  A sort of retirement party before they go to the charity shop or recycling?

As I sort each shelf or room it looks bare.  Trees don’t worry about that.  They know that the bare branches use less energy.  Rather a comforting thought for someone who struggles with clutter. 

But perhaps there is wisdom in a deciduous tree.  Sometimes it is perfectly all right to let things go.

Blogger has a whole new problem for me today: I can neither post comments on other people's blogs nor reply to comments on my blog.  My apologies: I am reading blogs and I appreciate the comments left on my blog.  

C is for cycling

 

Yes, I know cycling isn't really an autumn word but it's a topical word here in Lincolnshire as the first couple of stages of the Tour of Britain are in this county and yesterday the race came through Caistor.

For various complicated reasons I couldn't watch in Caistor but I went to the nearby village of Waddingham and sat (on my trundle truck) on the village green to watch.  We (my cousin R and I) were there about half an hour early as a lot of roads were closed.  We could neither of us believe how many police motorcycles came through.  Everything was very light hearted and fun: however one highlight was a white van whose driver had ignored the road closure signs and driven through the village.  A motorcycle cop stopped hm and an argument developed between White Van Man and the bobby.  White Van Man wanted to go through and make a delivery but Motorcycle Cop was having none of it and, despite being very irate, White Van Man had no choice and had to get off the road.  Maybe the sniggers of the crowd weren't to his liking either but the cool courtesy of the cop was commendable.  (Got a few "C" words in there - did you notice?)

But R and I were not there to witness to how wonderful our policemen are: we'd come to see the race.  It's slightly "blink and you miss them" as they whizz past.  Less than a minute between the first and last of 108 riders.  They'd already been up and down a lot of hills on the Lincolnshire Wolds and they were heading back to Lincoln.  There they rode up Steep Hill which is just what it says, and it is cobbled.  

I was glad to make my way back to the car and then on to a local hostelry where R treated me to lunch.

A pretty good day out.