Part 1. End of summer.
The end of summer makes me happy as fruit and veg is in abundence. However, the return to school and work after the holidays makes less sense as we all know how frustrating it can be to see the mercury hit 80 degrees on the 21st September. As an unemployed person I am able to enjoy such pleasures and have empathy with my urban comrades. I will take these opportunities to note down the diminishing essence of rural life and try to rekindle it in a diary form-a bit like Vivaldi did with the Four Seasons.
Hornets are around in the evening. One of them pestered me as I sipped a fine peachy ale from the Badger brewery. There are also two wasps nests in my thatch buas yet there is no itch down below!
Cob nuts hit you on the head as you pass under the Hazel trees and they say the price of lamb is going up.
On Sunday, after the barn dance, the local vineyard harvested their first grapes- Madelaine Angevine which makes a dry white with very floral notes. I may take part in the next harvest in a couple of weeks when they pick the Baccus and the Pinot. Will I be payed in wine and end up as the local wino? Who can tell.
It is the last week of the season for soft fruit in the south of England. Plums are getting scarce as are raspberries. In sheltered spots, capsicums and cucumbers still thrive, particularly with the warm south westerlys we are getting. Tomatos have a short time to go outside but under glass will go to October.
Remember to plant your garlic on the 21st December and you shall harvest fat bulbs on the 21st June 2007. Take stock of the changing season and stay in tune for the next update in which I hope to comment on the cider harvest and get local farmer's views on organic farming.
Got to go, the Range Rover has just pulled up outside for me. Tatty Bye
#20 September 2006
Comments...
nice! puts me in the mind of
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Posted by: Al peters | 5:47pm 21 September 2006
Sounds like you're misty eyed already at the prospect of missing all that marking, INSET and Assesment for Learning. Not. Unless you can get a new job teaching aggie science!
Posted by: youcancallmesir | 9:09pm 21 September 2006
teachers get long holidays.
Posted by: ken | 1:27pm 23 September 2006
"The Archers" had led me to believe that rural life is all crack and adultery these days...
Posted by: Ed | 5:02pm 24 September 2006