An intro to autumn...

What a cuspy, hectic, pregnant sort of time this is. Nature seems heaving with contradiction; umm-ing whether to be steaming hot or misty and cold. The fauna’s dying and living at the same time. Sunny fields of straw in a day become whisked into a wintry brown blanket. Hedgerows and trees fecund with fruit and berries - some green, some ripening, some burst and dripping, others sludge-like and molding back into the ground. It’s all chaotic luster, lustful, lusty confusion.

I feel almost anxious about it all – not baring such tasty abundances to be wasted. So pick and cook and pick and cook.  The last few greengages are too good to do anything with other than eat them straight off the tree. Slowly. Wowee, they’re special and best of all they never seem to get maggots. The same can’t be said of the purple Pershore Plum. Every single one I’ve ever bitten open has contained, lets say, a plum sausage. So now I don’t; they’re carefully opened and inspected ritually. This year they made a beautiful gooey plum and cinnamon cake.

There’s a pretty little apple tree here called a Keswick Coddling. It’s very old but short, like me, so I can hand pick the dainty apples pretty easily as well as gather the windfalls. If an apple can have character, this one does. They don’t grow much bigger than a toddler’s fist and there’s a perfectly formed suture-like ridge running from the stalk to the base on every one. It’s as if Mother Nature’s made a mistake the first time round and neatly sewn the little apple back up. They’re acid green in colour and make lovely clear jars of herb jelly.

But blackberries are my favorite of all, and what a wonderful autumn it’s being for them so far. Silly or no, one of my best things is to hold the pot of blackberries right up to my face and breathe in that enchanting scent you only seem to achieve with not a singular blackberry but a decent pile. It’s quite an elusive scent – it almost disappears once they’re cooked. That same scent is also a taste that only seems to be coaxed into appearing once the berries are lightly cooked with a bit of sugar. It’s a rare thing to experience that taste in a raw blackberry, but sometimes you do. This year I’m experimenting a little, so I’ve made blackberry cream biscuits and a blackberry and apple sponge cake sandwiched together with blackberry butter cream. The village church is always a welcome outlet for baking expeditions and there’s an art exhibition on there just now, so lucky they are.

Some particularly juicy Norfolk blackberries are pickling away in vodka right now, and an autumnal meringue cake of blackberries, fudged apples, brandy and marron glace made a scrumptious sunday lunch party pud last week.

I went for a twilight bike ride the other night. Bats tore over my thoughtful head, hunting stealthily and silently (to my ears) for moths in the oak trees bending over the lane. A flock of geese honked far away. They flew in a classic V but some of them pretended to tumble out of the sky. The musty scent of damp straw and groats made me heady and feel an odd tummy turning sense of nostalgia or some sort of ancient tug from the irriguous ground. Laugh. I suppose some of us are more in tune with the ‘pull’ than others! The Welsh have almost got a word for it: Hiraeth. Trust the wild and soulful Celts. I think that must be what I’m feeling now; an indescribable, pulsing longing for I don’t know what. Well, my father’s Welsh and my ma’s from Shropshire (which may as well be Wales) so I guess that explains it. It’s just in me. Lor, I’m like a walking mushroom with mycelium anchoring me to the earth!

And the last two nights have been stunning for gazing into stellar space. The stars studded the trees like shiny night fruit. Sky Walk (the silly App that ought to be brilliant but is sadly squiffy) is not a patch on pa’s old fashioned planisphere teamed with granddad’s red night torch.

Agostino (the lovely lurcher) has caught his first hare. I’ve made a rich ragu from it and some homemade Angel Hair to celebrate. The open fire crackles cozily in the kitchen, it’s the first catch of many and Agostino is toasted heartily. He knows it was his (yes, of course we laid a place for him, and wolf it down he did. I’m sure he smiled). The manly poetic charms of Bert Jansch lilt in the background. I discovered him in Holt Post Office - if a post office can be cool this one is. There are a myriad L.P.’s. You can browse as you wait and something unusual is usually playing. You know what it is because the record cover is stuck with cellotape to the counter screen. ‘Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning’ is now one of my all time favourites. I’m in love with him when he sings it: (scroll to 2 ½ minutes into the vid to hear it)..

Bert singing 'As fresh as a sweet sunday morning' (2mins 30secs into film)...
or if this link stops working, paste 'Bert Jansch - There comes a time/Fresh as a sweet sunday morning!' into YouTube.  

Lovely Autumn is very welcome. I’m soon to Scotland again for a little more cooking action. Life’s one happy little adventure after another just now! I think it can be if you can just manage to cut the strings that tie you down. One by one. Snip, snip. Snip. Some need more of a saw than others. But once they’re gone off you float into the ether, free as a bird. The odd tumble, like one of those geese, is inevitable I suppose. Just so long as you don’t hit one of those horridly man-made electric pylons. Ouch. That’s a sure fire way to come back to earth with a bang.