Maybe one day I'll learn how to take pictures in the dark...

Aunt Leaf - by Mary Oliver

Needing one, I invented her –
the great-great-aunt dark as hickory
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,
and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,
and whisper in a language only the two of us knew
the word that meant follow,

and we'd travel
cheerful as birds
out of the dusty town and into the trees
where she would change us both into something quicker –
two foxes with black feet,
two snakes green as ribbons,
two shimmering fish –
and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door
with the rest of my family,
who were kind, but solid as wood
and rarely wandered. While she,
old twist of feathers and birch bark,
would walk in circles wide as rain and then
float back

scattering the rags of twilight
on fluttering moth wings;

or she'd slouch from the barn like a grey opossum;

or she'd hang in the milky moonlight
burning like a medallion,

this bone dream,
this friend I had to have,
this old woman made out of leaves.

Autumn Leaves

There have been a few windy days on the cliff and the trees are more bare than ever. Plenty of crunchy leaves underfoot of every colour of gold. Squirrels rustling in the undergrowth, busy collecting the tricornered beech nuts sprung free from their prickly cases.

I had my encounter with urban wildlife today after walking up the steep steps from school - my neighbour's cat in a small tree by the path looking like he couldn't go up or down. "Meow!" he said to me a trifle piteously. And seeing that he is always being told not to pee in my garden, it was a direct appeal to my previously non-existent sympathies. "Come on," I said, offering my arm as he inched along an ever-bendy girth-decreasing twig. Perhaps he could feel me smiling at his predicament in my mind. He tried not to struggle too hard at the indignity and I escaped with a very small scratch to my chin (for although it was a small tree, alas for me, it was a little over my head). Stalking off quite ungratefully afterwards. Still, needs must, on one's rounds in the universe.

Speaking of more urban wildlife, I was also lucky enough to see the peregrine falcons circling on the thermals above St.John's steeple where they have a nesting box. In the summer you can hear the harsh and raucous cries of the chicks, waiting for food. Plenty of fat pigeon here for them!

I love autumn - time of the earth, when the leaves are settling back into the loam. mmm. Here's one of my favourite poems from Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Spring and Fall

to a young child

MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older	5
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:	10
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.	15

Wot I et: for dinner - Autumn Chicken

Autumn chicken with chorizo - a warming dish made with one whole spicy spanish sausage, red with paprika. Onions, garlic and 5 bay leaves, generous grindings of black pepper. Cubed Maris Piper potatoes, butternut squash and carrots. Fried chorizo first, then added diced onions and chunks of garlic into the mix as the paprika flavoured oil seeped out. Then the bay leaves and black pepper. Two whole chicken legs on the bone, thigh and drum, skinside down. Layer the vegetables: squash, carrots, then a layer of potatoes with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Add enough water to cover the chicken legs and cook in oven at about 190 celsius for one and a half hours or until chicken is tender. An all in one comfort dish! Err...not for dieters!

Can she bake an apple pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?

Perfect autumn food. Fresh off the tree, the apples are ready to eat. Cinnamon and nutmeg warm the body and soul.

The golden beech leaves are falling on our hill. The squirrels are busy collecting the funny angled beechnuts popping out from their prickly cases.

It is time to make apple pie. A toffee-like apple pie with dark molasses sugar and spice. Tarte tatin without the flipping, and it always reminds me of my friend Esther, who used to bake me covered pies like this in Virginia.

What do you do if you are girl like me and can't make pastry and can only make this recipe up new everytime? Well: 1. buy sweet pastry case. 2. get lots of dark molasses sugar and crumble all over base. 3. peel and cut up apples in chunky slices. 4. toss in more sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg sprinkled generously. 5. arrange artistically and dot butter strategically around the slices. 6. bake till brown sugar is oozing and apples shrink slightly. (And Mr. G, following his nose shouts to you, lounging on the sofa hypnotised by Elektra's flashing blades: "Oy! Does this need to come out?")

psst. As you can see, we each had a slice already, warm from the oven before bedtime!

Very small round up

Well this isn't my post on my favourite food, or on Lavender, or on the vagaries of memory - but I will promise all those because I will have written down my promise and must therefore do it - remember the Frog Prince? I threaten my children - "A promise is a promise." (or else a frog will come and sit on your pillow and implore you to kiss it until you do). Hmm. I am just excited because I am going to see Neil Gaiman at the kids litfest in Bath this Saturday. Yay! I just know he will just be so delicious. Don't worry though, hubby Mr G is coming along err... to escort me. I shan't do anything rash. I'll bring along American Gods and Stardust for him to sign. And the very next day Lyrical Lemongrass and Bald Eagle are coming to stay for a few days! I can't wait to see them, I expect we are all going to have a bubble in the spa, in the rooftop pool. We'll watch the steam rise in the chilly air with the Abbey looming gracefully in the background. Ahh Autumn, my favourite season.