October Musing - Fall

"This is the time of year where everything drops into the earth. In the spring there is an upward movement all around one, with a lift in plants and trees. Now it is the time of weight, when seed pod and berry, fruit and leaf fall and return to the earth. It is truly the fall, a lovelier word for this season than autumn. The horse chestnut has cast down its shining fruit, warm of colour as it breaks from its tight fitting, kid-lined case case, on the soggy ground all around lie these lumpy, horned shells. The winds blow down pears and we find them, yellow and brown surrounding the trees at their base .....

How it rains these days . In the grass by the hedges, large shiny slugs appear, black as liquorice and beautiful of shape as they stretch themselves out. They heave like ships on a rough sea in their passage across the grasses. The garden is sodden and the trees drip, their autumn colours deepened and burnished. But roses and violas still bloom, and carnations are in bursting bust. Michaelmas daisies are untouched by frost, and the cosmos still shows pink among its seedling heads. We gather bowls of bright-coloured flowers for the house .....

Autumn is not the sad time it is supposed to be. Darkness falls at five o'clock and the garden is cold and wet, but it is a season of planning and expectation. It is now that we plant our bulbs, in itself an act of faith. How then can autumn be called dull and hopeless? Even the fallen leaf is food for future years of foliage and fruit, and promises next summer an added colour to the flowers."

Extracts from the October chapter of 'Four Hedges' by Clare Leighton. 

Illustration. of 'The Acorn Fairy' by Cicely Mary Barker.

Himself and I visited a local pharmacy a fortnight ago for the first of two seasonal vaccinations. We parked just outside where on getting out we noticed that the ground was littered with fallen acorns. We both hoped that nobody had parked nearer to the tree otherwise they and their vehicle might have been in danger. 

Earlier today I was delighted to discover that some of the Flower Fairy paintings by Cicely Mary Barker will be exhibited at a local art gallery next year! I'm looking forward to seeing the fairies in the flesh.