X is for Xanthophyll

I can't tell you how pleased I was to find Xanthophyll to put in my autumn alphabet.  It's probably the most autumnal word in my list but I'd never heard of it.  And I would take any X word!

Xanthophyll is a natural yellow pigment found in plants.  In the summer it is masked  by chlorophyll which is the green pigment essential for photosynthesis.  It helps protect leaves from damage caused by too much sunlight.  As autumn arrives, chlorophyll breaks down. The yellow xanthophyll pigments remain visible, giving leaves their yellow and golden colours.  It's there all the summer and it's only towards the end of the life of the leaf that it is revealed.  

So now you know too!  (If you didn't already.)

A psalm for harvest

Psalm 65

 8    You visit the earth and water it;  ♦

you make it very plenteous.

9    The river of God is full of water;  ♦

you prepare grain for your people,

    for so you provide for the earth.

10  You drench the furrows and smooth out the ridges;  ♦

you soften the ground with showers and bless its increase.

11  You crown the year with your goodness,  ♦

and your paths overflow with plenty.

12  May the pastures of the wilderness flow with goodness  ♦

and the hills be girded with joy.

13  May the meadows be clothed with flocks of sheep  ♦

and the valleys stand so thick with corn

    that they shall laugh and sing.

W is for well, well, well

 

Here’s to a  Wonderful, Windy, Woolly Autumn

Well, well, well.  Here we are in autumn, when the weather turns wild, the wind whistles and the woods become a wonderful whirl of waving and wonderful colour. The world seems to have swapped its summer wardrobe for a warm, woolly, weatherproof one.

The weather, naturally, has its own wicked sense of humour. One minute the sky is wide and white; the next, a wall of rain is wandering across the fields.

Then there is wool. Wonderful wool. Woolly jumpers, woolly socks, woolly scarves and woolly blankets suddenly become essential equipment.

Autumn also brings warming things: warm porridge, warming soup, walnut cake, winter vegetables and wonderful cups of whatever takes your fancy. I settle down while the wind worries the windows.

The evenings are wonderfully welcoming. Outside, the wind wanders around the house, the rain washes the windows. Inside, I have a book, a blanket and absolutely no wish whatsoever to go anywhere.

There is no need to rush. I can wander, watch, wonder and wait. I can watch the leaves whirl across the garden, wonder where summer went and wait for the kettle to boil.

Autumn is a time to withdraw indoors, wrap yourself in wool and watch the world go by.

Well, why wouldn't you?

 

V is for vespers

I have to admit that I’m more of a Compline sort of gal than a Vespers one.  Compline is at bedtime: Vespers is the evening prayer and is a little earlier.  In the C of E we now have it as Evensong and maybe Compline later on.  I’m cheating slightly as I’m going to roll them all together with prayers in the evening to be my “V” post.  And it seems right to think about this in autumn.

There is something rather satisfying about the day coming to an end.  It may not have been very productive – that doesn’t matter.  It’s a day which I’ve spent with God whether or not I have thought about him and it’s a day I want to give back in prayer.  We spend much of our lives trying to squeeze more into the day. Vespers does the opposite. It says: stop now. The day is ending. You don't have to do anything more.

The formal service involves a psalm, some Scripture, prayers and, traditionally, the beautiful Magnificat — Mary's song of praise from the Gospel of Luke.  I use the Book of Common Prayer version with its wonderfully old fashioned language.  Sometimes the prayer can be as simple as sitting quietly for a few minutes at home and consciously handing the day over to God.  The world will manage, even if I stop pedalling.

Vespers invites us to look back over the day — not to judge it, but simply to notice it.  The things that went well.  The things that didn't.  The small kindness we received.  And perhaps the things we wish we had done differently.  Then we let them go.

I think there is something especially comforting about an evening prayer that has been prayed by Christians for centuries. Somewhere, in some church, monastery or quiet room, people have been watching the daylight fade and saying their prayers long before we invented electric lights, central heating and online shopping.

We still need to stop.  We still need to give thanks.  We still need forgiveness.

Some ancient traditions are worth keeping.

 

U is for umbellifers

 

Cow parsley

There are some weeds which I rather like.  I do have my standards but there is something rather lovely about umbellifers standing near autumn hedges. 

Umbellifers?  They are plants with umbrella-shaped heads made up of dozens of tiny flowers.

Queen Anne's lace

Cow parsley is probably the one most of us recognise, although by autumn it has gone from its frothy white springtime self to something altogether more skeletal. The flower heads dry beautifully, catching the low autumn light and looking almost like tiny pieces of lace.  Wild carrot does much the same. Its flower heads flatten and curl inwards as they age, forming those curious little shapes sometimes called a ‘bird’s nest’.   And wild carrot has the lovely alternative name of Queen Anne’s lace. 

T is for twilight

 

Tomorrow, 23rd September, is the autumnal equinox , that curious point in the year when day and night are roughly equal in length. After that, here in the Northern Hemisphere the nights begin to win their annual contest with the daylight.

In other words, evenings are drawing in.

There is something comforting about twilight. The birds become quieter and the whole world seems to take a deep breath.

It’s the time to light a gentle lamp and curl up with a drink or a book and decide that anything not done today can jolly well wait until tomorrow.

Twilight also makes the ordinary look slightly magical.  A few lights glowing in windows suddenly seem wonderfully welcoming.

The autumn equinox feels like a little marker in the year.  Summer is officially stepping aside. The leaves are changing, the mornings are cooler and the evenings are closing in.

Each day the nights will be a little longer and on Sunday, 25^th October British Summer Time will end at 2am and we all get an extra hour’s sleep. 

S is for Slippers

Slippers are one of the great privileges of retirement. My slippers are not glamorous. In fact, they are from a range of men’s slippers!  I don’t like furry slippers or slippers with fussy bits attached so footwear designed for chaps seemed to fit my purpose better. 

They take me from the kitchen to the sitting room, from the sitting room to the bedroom  and occasionally (on dry days only) outside to the bin.

Autumn makes slippers even more appealing. The mornings are cooler, the evenings arrive earlier and the floor suddenly feels much colder than it did in August.

As I said, slippers are one of the privileges of retirement.  They go with woolly jumpers, maybe a throw or two and a warm drink.  And a very smug/snug feeling.  How about you?

 

R is for rosehips

 In the summer the native dog rose looks lovely in our hedgerows but the flowers died off some time ago and now we have rosehips.  They are just little splashes of colour almost hidden in hedges where the hawthorns have rather more profuse fruits.  Wild rosehip looks as though it has been put there deliberately by someone with a paintbrush.

Wild rosehips were particularly important during the Second World War, when rosehip syrup was made as a source of vitamin C when supplies of some fruits were scarce.  I can remember rosehip syrup being served with milk puddings at school in the fifties.  

I’ve mentioned foraging earlier in this series but I’ve never collected rosehips for food.  I am happy to leave them for birds and other wildlife.  Besides, they look so pretty in the hedgerows.  They don't need to be picked, cooked or preserved to be worthwhile.  They can simply be admired.

For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven:

 a time to be born and a time to die;

a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted;

3 

a time to kill and a time to heal;

a time to break down and a time to build up;

4 

a time to weep and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn and a time to dance;

5 

a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 

a time to seek and a time to lose;

a time to keep and a time to throw away;

7 

a time to tear and a time to sew;

a time to keep silent and a time to speak;

8 

a time to love and a time to hate;

a time for war and a time for peace.

Q is for quietness

One of the great rebellions of my retirement is claiming the right to do nothing.  I had a busy working life, was carer for both my mother and my sister, ran a house and garden which were much too big for me and now I enjoy the pleasure of quietness.

I’d hate you to feel that idleness is easy.  I have only to look around and I can see so many things which I should be doing but I struggle and say “nah”. 

The bins ought to be emptied.  The laundry is breeding.  I have lots of cupboards which need to be sorted.  But I'm ignoring all of it.

Even the birds are quieter.  The springtime avian urge for romance is a distant memory and now there is abundant food and they feel little urge to squabble. 

But it isn’t really quiet.  The freezer motor hums.  The occasional car passes.  Even my tummy gives the odd rumble.  Two of those are easy to ignore. 

But mostly there is quietness.

The leaves can fall without my assistance.

The rain can rain.

The washing can wait.

I am content.

 

P is for porridge

 

Porridge never appears on the breakfast table here at Frugal Follies during the summer.  It is strictly an autumn/winter dish.  In the summer I might have overnight oats but the winter calls for something warm and comforting. 

I think breakfast is probably my favourite meal of the day.  I’ve tried ‘em all.

When I was a little girl breakfast was always bacon and . . .    The “and” could be tomatoes, egg, kidneys, liver, mushrooms, fried bread.  Just one of those, not the “full English” of today’s menus.  We never had porridge as my Father reckoned he’d eaten enough porridge as a child and during the war to last a lifetime. Now I eat bacon only when Jack comes. 

I like a variety of breakfasts.  I may have Greek yoghurt but add blueberries, mango, raspberries.  There’s always a mixed collection of seeds and nuts as well. 

Or I might have avocado toast.  Occasionally marmalade on toast.  Or spinach with scrambled eggs.  Or boiled eggs with asparagus spears to dip in, but only if I’ve found yellow sticker asparagus.  I sometimes have baked beans – no toast, just beans eaten like soup.  There’s even a kipper in the freezer waiting for the right day. 

But porridge is an old faithful.  I like to measure out tomorrow’s porridge after today’s breakfast so the oats can soak in milk or water for a day before cooking.  And I have it topped with the same sort of things which I have on yoghurt in the summer

There is something wonderfully reassuring about a breakfast that has been around for generations and has never once felt the need to reinvent itself.

 

O is for overcast

After a summer in which few people felt that we didn’t have enough sunshine, we’re now getting a little bit (but not whole days) of overcast weather.  The sky is grey, the garden looks slightly sulky and the sun has clearly decided that today is not a working day. 

Instead, the sky says: Stay in. Indoors will be best today.  And I just don’t argue.

Great artists look at gloom and see colours the rest of us would otherwise miss.  Mostly we see flat grey but look closer, there is colour in that murk.

Look at the garden.  Colours seem deeper, maybe richer, the greens change their tone and, if the spiders have been busy, there’s dew on their webs.   The leaves have changed colour but for the most part, they are still on the trees. 

And look around in the house.  That’s better now that the sun isn’t telling the world how long it is since I dusted. 

Clouds are not necessarily a bad thing. They soften the light, slow us down and remind us that life doesn't have to be sunshine and blue skies every day.

Hurrah!  Blogger has updated my reading list! Life is looking up!

 

N is for nostalgia

 L P Hartley said “The past is a foreign country” but I can’t agree.  The past is so familiar.  Old friends, old faces, old voices.  There are so many in my memory.  All it takes is a smell, a song, an old photograph or even a phrase not heard since my youth.  

So many things from my youth would be strange to youngsters.  Telephones with curly cables.  Televisions with knobs.  But they are not foreign to me. 

I remember childhood summers that seemed to last forever. By the time September came I was well ready to go back to school.  But during those long weeks there were picnics, bike rides, visits, family gatherings. 

Nostalgia wears rose coloured spectacles or rather she takes the ordinary bits of our past and gives them a gentle golden glow.

I sometimes miss things I didn't even appreciate at the time. Waiting for two ounces of sweets to be weighed out from a big jar.   School milk drunk from a bottle with a straw.  Trotting to the letter box to post mother’s endless letters

But I think nostalgia is less about wanting to go back and more about remembering who we were.  In retirement life is no longer quite so full of rushing from one responsibility to another. There is space to remember.

Sometimes those memories make me smile. Sometimes they make me sad. Sometimes they remind me of people who are no longer here.

And that's all right.  We don't have to push the past away just because we're living in the present.  Maybe we can invite those memories in and share a cuppa with them . 

Then, when the reminiscing is over, we can get back to the present.  Nostalgia is a lovely place to visit.  But I wouldn't want to live there.

M is for mums

 No, not mothers:- chrysanthemums.  Gardeners often call them mums.   And I forgot to get some this year!

They are one of those plants which give a wonderful autumn burst of colour, along with sedums, Michaelmas daisies, dahlias and rudbeckias.  Summer doesn’t have it all her own way.  These flowers are the garden’s final burst of colour before winter takes over.

Many gardeners grow wonderful specimens to enter the local horticultural shows but mums aren’t necessarily demanding.   They simply get on with flowering while the rest of the garden is collapsing around them.

As the years go by, I find myself increasingly sympathetic to plants that bloom a little later in life. There is something rather appealing about having your best moment when everyone else has gone indoors.

Chrysanthemums come in all sorts of colours — yellow, bronze, red, pink, white and rather alarming shades that seem to have been invented by someone with a fluorescent paint box. They are wonderfully cheerful.

When the evenings are drawing in and summer already feels like something that happened somewhere else, mums provide a little reminder that there is still plenty of life and colour left in the year.

L is for larder

 

My Mother’s pantry always looked wonderful at this time of the year.  She was a great jam-and-pickle maker and there would be regimented rows of jars on the pantry shelf.  Raspberries, apples and pears from the garden would have been bottled and each Kilner jar held the promise of a fruit pie or crumble.  She’d have made a start on Christmas preparations so there would be jars of homemade mincemeat.  

I sometimes feel I’d like to be like that but I don’t even have a pantry, never mind rows of Kilner jars making me feel like the cook at Downton Abbey!

What I do have is a freezer and a large cupboard.  I’ve been making gallons of soup as well as portions of stewed fruit to have with my porridge or yoghurt.  And I’m building up my supplies of tins in case we have power cuts and the freezer has to stay very firmly shut.

In retirement I have more time for cooking and my supplies of dried pulses and nuts are much larger – many a squirrel would envy me!

There is something very satisfying about putting food by for winter. It feels wonderfully old-fashioned and sensible.

My “larder” doesn’t have shelves that look beautiful on Instagram.  Rather it reflects my lifestyle choice that if the weather is horrid I do not want to have to go shopping. 

 

For the fruits of his creation, thanks be to God

 

  For the fruits of his creation,

thanks be to God.

For his gifts to every nation,

thanks be to God.

For the ploughing, sowing reaping,

silent growth while we are sleeping,

future needs in earth's safe keeping,

thanks be to God.

 

   In the just reward of labour

God's will is done.

In the help we give our neighbour

God's will is done.

In our world wide task of caring

for the hungry and despairing,

in the harvest we are sharing,

God's will is done.

 

 For the harvests of his Spirit,

thanks be to God.

For the good we all inherit,

thanks be to God.

For the wonders that astound us,

for the truths that still confound us,

most of all, that love has found us,

thanks be to God.

Tune: Ar Hyd y Nos (All through the night)

K is for Kettle and Knitting

There is something deeply comforting about putting the kettle on.  It’s the answer to so many of life’s problems, especially when autumn starts to take hold.   I’ve never been a more-tea-vicar as I don’t drink tea, but a hot drink often hits the spot.

As soon as friends arrive, they are offered a cuppa.  I offer tea (builders variety) green tea (preferred by Jack), coffee (my first choice), decaff coffee (that’s mostly for Annie-The-Home-Enhancer aka the cleaner), fruit tea (I don’t drink coffee after about 3pm) or even instant soup.  There’s something very basic to friendship about offering some sort of hot drink. 

If I’m bored, I’ll have a hot drink.  If I’m upset, I’ll have a hot drink.  If I’m cold, I’ll have a hot drink.  Even when I have my regular zooms with various friends most of us make a cuppa before settling down in front of the screen.

scarves

Then I settle down and take pleasure in drinking it.  And often I’ll pick up my knitting.  I’m getting quite a stack of scarves ready to go to The Salvation Army to be given to homeless people.  There’s even one there commissioned by Santa for a little girl of my acquaintance (I’m a supply elf for when the regulars have a panic on). There’s real pleasure in knitting: the cosy chair, the wool, the clickety-click of needles and the satisfying feeling that I am making something useful.

Retirement is rather good for both kettle and knitting. There is no need to rush. You can make a cup of tea, sit down, pick up the needles and spend a perfectly respectable morning doing very little.

Sometimes the knitting goes wrong.  (I am so "good" at knitting that I can make mistakes on a plain scarf.  But there's no rush.  I can put the kettle on.  A cuppa is the answer to everything.  

J is for journalling

 I know today is the anniversary of a very sad day for the USA so my condolences for all my readers there.  I remember exactly what I was doing when news of the attacks came - Jack's son and his brother were planting a hedge in my garden and I dragged the TV to the patio doors so they could watch the unfolding events in New York.  Unbelievable we thought, but it was all too true.  

On the day I decided to withdraw as covid advanced, I also started to keep a journal and I have kept it ever since.  My journal is a Word document which I find really useful as I can search it easily to find what happened when.  

So I decided to check what I did on this day in previous years.  In 2020 I was just starting to emerge from isolation but I became worried because I came into contact with a suspected covid case so I scuttled back home and seclusion.  Another year I went to a harvest meeting of the WI and reported that it was totally boring.  The year that it was a talk on self defence was much more interesting!  One year I went swimming and reported that I had swum fourteen lengths which I decided was a little too far as I was shattered for the rest of the day.  Last year I was beginning to make plans for my hibernaculum.

And how I wish I had the courage and talent to make a lovely hand-written-and-illustrated journal like Kirsten of A Letter from Home!  Maybe I could try that in my hibernaculum.  

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.