All To Sweetness Turns
a ramble over the autumn heath
Fallen birch leaves on the heath, 8 October 2024.
Today I think
Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot's seed,
And the square mustard field;
Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;
The smoke's smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.
It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.
Edward Thomas, ‘Digging’
Bracken turning colour on the heath, 4 October 2023.
When we go out of the cool church, it is into bright, mellow sunshine, warm but not hot, and we look over the rooftop towards the Fen, and the hills beyond. We see ploughed fields and trees tinged ochre and rust-red, an autumn countryside.
Susan Hill, The Magic Apple Tree
Hello dear friends and welcome to my cottage here in north Norfolk, as the season shifts decisively to the golds and bronzes of autumn.
As you know I do love to write, but there are so many words already on Substack that sometimes I think it might a nice change for our little community if I slip in something different between the moons. Substack offers ever-evolving opportunities to utilise other media like video, podcasts and, more recently, live-streaming so if I can get my head around the tech let’s have a go at some of those :-) Do let me know your own thoughts and what you would like to see more (or less) of. This pause between the new and full moons is yours, after all.
Actually, Substack is very user-friendly so I don’t think it will be too difficult to do something different even for someone like me who likes to keep things simple. The main issue here is my rural wifi which is so slow and bumbling that I have to go out somewhere like a coffee shop with better wifi speeds to upload anything as demanding of bandwidth as video. Not that that’s too much of a problem, especially when you’re lucky enough to have a lovely vegan cafe a couple of miles away.
So, with all this in mind, yesterday I took a walk down the lane and over the heath. I wanted to show you exactly how the season (and the colours) have been shifting as October gathers pace and we slide towards the changing of the clocks and All Hallows. Here it is, and I hope you’ll enjoy the little ramble together.