MELLOW AND FRUITFUL

There’s definitely an autumnal feel in the air now, even though when the sun comes out some days it still feels like T-shirt and shorts weather. A couple of walks out with Bert recently and I’ve left my fleece jacket hanging over the gatepost at the top of the drive, cos I’m already sweating by the time we get there. And then just hope and pray that the weather doesn’t suddenly change during the hour that we’re out…

It’s an amazing late summer/early autumn so far for fruit though. Our hedges are sagging under the weight of blackberries, I’ve been collecting punnets full of bilberries on the hillside at Carnedd y Filiast, our gnarly old apple trees are heavy with (admittedly rather gnarly-looking) fruit, and even at the industrial estate where I work the hazel trees in the hedges are laden with nuts. We’ve plums and sloes – and we would have had raspberries but the birds and the flies ate them all… So Graham has been busy making jam while I’ve been making fruit pies and crumbles and the freezer is stuffed full of stewed fruit.

The pre-autumnal colours are beautiful too – up on the hillsides the heather and the red and brown-turning bilberry leaves are creating a patchwork of colours that is simply stunning. The patchwork of purple on my fingers after an hour of berry collecting is not quite so lovely, however!

And it looks like it could be a good autumn for mushrooms this year too – if this enormous cep that Bert and I found on the way up through the woods is anything to go by!