Autumn.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

So, I’ve been making loads of Chutney.  Apples and Peaches mostly, although the Quinces are coming along fine.  Quinces are vastly underrated, perhaps because they are small, very hard and very fiddly, but they are so worth the effort.

I boil them to mush these days and then sieve out the juice, which I then boil again with loads of sugar.  And such a very pretty pink jelly you get.  The taste is something else.

Next will be the Chestnuts.  And I have bottled a few of those in my time.  They are currently fetching eight Euros a Kilo, while they lay on the ground around here just for the taking.

Not an abundance of Walnuts this year, but they run in cycles.  Next year will probably be better.

No Cob Nuts at all, so I expect that the Squirrels are back.  We still have Red Squirrels here, so that’s okay.

Another Summer gone and Winter isn’t very far off, but I have loads of wood to burn, mostly foraged from somewhere or another.

Thank you, God, whoever you might be.  I do so love this place.