So long without an update! My apologies.
Woken by the heavy patter of the inevitable Bank Holiday Monday rain this morning. I’m always rather perplexed by brits getting weirded out by it trending autumnal at the end of august: the year really does go over around Lammas, even (especially?) here in the South-East. This is why the traditional Wiccan Wheel of the Year made so much sense to me when I started studying the Craft – it matched up so much to my own experience! (Probably not surprising, with Gardner’s supposed New Forest roots for it…)
Maybe it’s growing up in farming country, but pretty much as soon as the grain harvest starts there’s autumn in the air for me. You can see the difference, after July’s lightning storms: the trees all turning that uniform august dark green, the dustiness of the leaves, the drawing-in nights, the evening and morning smell… All of it whispering WINTER IS COMING from the start of August. It just doesn’t start to shout it until September (memories of going back to school on freezing station platforms, jumper pulled over icy hands).
The cherries are past (mostly), and everything is apples here at the moment, the quantity of them even on these market-town streets is ridiculous. So much windfall, squishing underfoot and kicked into the road. But many of the blackberries are already weird and sour, like it was already after Old Michaelmas Day – it’s been a shitty summer for berries, with the lack of rain – though the elderberries, though scant, are juicy and less stinging-tart than usual. There’s a positively epic quantity of haws, after May’s abundance of blossom – I need to harvest a load of them this week, though my physical mobility is pretty bad right now.
…Gods, I’ve missed this land.
weald and wold 
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