September Begins

September began with some beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures. I should know I was helping my brother move, wishing that I was on the beach or in the sea instead of lugging boxes and heavy furniture around! 
In a way it was what I expected. It seems to have been the pattern as long as I can remember that August is a pretty unsettled month while the beginning of September is sunny, warm and lovely. It is called an Indian Summer. This year's August was the coldest for 18 years, so can we expect a correspondingly hot September? Well, if today is anything to go by, no. The sun woke me, shining in through my curtains and spreading its message of hope... before being cruelly blotted out by grey splurgy clouds. Clouds which then decided to lower and leak some sort of drizzly nonsense out. 
The forecast does not look good. Gales are forecast for Tuesday with showers and rain for the next week. Chances of an Indian Summer slipping away then? Well, maybe not if John Kettley, legendary weatherman, can be believed. He says we will have an Indian Summer but not just yet - "Maybe not in proper terms until later this month, or even early October." Something to look forward to!
One thing I found out this week is that, meterologically speaking, Autumn began on September 1st. For years I was annoyed the autumn was not allowed to begin until September 21st and always thought it should be on the first. Now I can celebrate the start of the season exactly when I thought it should start! Thanks weathermen. Where would we be without you?

Elderberries and Sunshine

The tale of two

seasons at the tail end of August. Both yesterday

and today, Autumn did the first stint; chilly, blustery, grey. Summer then woke up and provided us with a second half of the day that was warmer, sunnier and more appropriate for the month we're in.

Yesterday I made the most of

the waning summer by going for a walk near Tredavoe and picking some elderberries. These I added to the ones already collected, and then, once all the berries were stripped from the stalk by use of fork prongs and copious amounts of patience, I put them in a bucket with some raisins and a gallon of boiling water and there they will sit for the next couple of weeks. A very pleasant

aroma filled the air... I hope for a very pleasant drink, but I'll have to wait a while for that.

Anyway I took some photos and here they are. Real signs of Autumn's imminent arrival in the hedgerows and trees. Hope you

enjoy these. More will follow.

(By the way, today I went to the beach. Well, it is still summer!)

August and Everything After

Yesterday was August Bank Holiday Monday, or, as it is known in my little corner of Cornwall, Newlyn Fish Festival. For those not in the know, it is a celebration of Newlyn Harbour, its fishermen and of course all things fishy. Seafood is displayed, cooked, and eaten; the harbour and fish market is open for examination, there are displays of gig racing, lugger sailing, and lifeboat rescues; jetskis churn up the harbour water, people listen to music and watch entertainers, and for one day it seems like the world has come to Newlyn. And it is always sunny. For 21 years, since the festival began, it has been a sunny, warm, beautiful bank holiday. It is as if the summer is saying, "This is what it could have been like for the past couple of months, if I'd have felt like it." It is the way it should be.

Today could not be more different. Today it is overcast, there is a real chill in the air, and as the rubbish from yesterday is painstakingly picked up from around the town and things return to normal, I decided to walk the dog and the son at Madron Carn (or Trengwainton Carn to be accurate, but no-one I know calls it that). The feeling that I had woken up in a totally different day from yesterday continued as it seemed like I had stepped into the middle of autumn. Leaves were not just falling visibly and audibly from a lone oak, they had already fallen. The tree was almost bare, only a few dried husks of leaves remain. As Frost said, "Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all." And that was written about trees in October! I looked for blackberries, and saw many already well past their prime and withered away, the elderberries I hoped to find to supplement what I have already gathered were nowhere to be seen, despite my collecting elderflowers there in May. The overall feeling was not of late summer, but late autumn. This is what made me decide to start this blog. I want to experience and record all the different facets of this time of the year, my favourite time of the year. I don't want to feel, like I briefly felt today, that the best of autumn had been and gone without my noticing.

This blog is to set down my thoughts and impressions from now until it feels that winter has arrived. I want to record the physical changes that occur in this part of the world, the different ways the season is marked and celebrated by me and others, and the different ways that autumn affects me, poetically, intellectually and emotionally, and the way it has affected others in the past. More than just a record of autumn 2011, this is will be a recollection and celebration of autumn itself.

Please get involved: leave comments about how the different aspects of autumn affect you, or send me emails and I'll include you in blogs to come. I hope you enjoy my little piece of autumn, please bookmark me and come back often...