I love the names of the moons.
This month we have a super blood wolf moon. It is a super moon because it is at its closest point to the Earth and appears bigger and brighter than normal. And passing through the Earth's shadow, the beautiful, fat moon glows coppery red, hence 'blood' moon. The 'wolf' bit of the name is less clear but probably stems from ancient native American observations. There is a delicious chill in the sound of the howl of the wolf in the night, resonating with tales of faraway and long ago. Of course, there are none here now. The last wolves disappeared from the UK hundreds of years ago.
But I shall keep an eye on Bill to see if he is drawn to the night sky this week!
So, we have feasted. We have brought winter evergreens into the house and decorated with twinkling lights, spruce and mistletoe. We have sung carols, listened to ancient truths and prayed our prayers. We have lit tall, ivory altar candles and advent wreaths and we have stretched out in front of the fire to play games, exchange gifts and create shared stories. There have been long muddy walks, hugs, dogs, laughter, tears and new resolve.
And now, with the freshening of the year, I am sweeping up the pine needles and the wood ash. The house is newly quiet. Wrapping paper (non-metallic) has been sorted and recycled. Christmas letters have been put ready for reply, new addresses and family news safely noted. I tie up this year's cards and pack them away with the decorations - to be brought out next December, at card-writing time! We have chopped the branches off the Christmas trees; they make a dry layer in the chicken run, lifting the ladies' feet out of the mud. The trunks are ready to chop and stack in the log pile. They are good fuel once they are seasoned.
In the new year, I always make a list for my 'Christmas-self next year'. As well as notes about recipes that did (or didn't) work etc, there are always more philosophical wishes too. For Christmas 2019 I want to: buy less, shop local, invest in people, invite friends, keep it simple, have time ...
Autumn creeps on!
We ran up the drove road across Aller Moor this morning. The just-rising sun was beginning to paint ice cream colours in the sky but night was reluctant to let go. Big flocks of starlings were arrowing low across the meadows, half a thousand at a time. They had risen in clouds from their reedy roosts and were now hungry. Rooks, flying higher, were heading for their feeding grounds too. They need soft pasture where they can plunge those great beaks deep into the ground. The croak of raven was tossed on the breeze and the trumpet bray of the cranes echoed across the top of the heavens as they launched themselves from their secret strongholds.
Ahead of us, along the rhynes, the willows and thorns were full of bright thrushes. The fieldfares, winter visitors from the North, are back! They are beautiful: cinnamon and slate with white underparts. Their chuckling cry is a true herald of autumn.
Happy new year! September always feels like a time for fresh starts, new resolve and good intentions, shiny shoes and shiny conkers. There used to be the pleasure of crisp, new notepads and exercise books. Sadness that the summer was over was always tempered by the thrill of the new. What did you do during the summer? Which classroom have we got, which teachers? It is a long time since I was a schoolgirl, but my life continues to be ruled by the rhythms of the academic year and I spend more time than I should in stationery shops, picking pens and pencils, getting organised and preparing for the year ahead. The clamour of the playground reminds me of standing in line and waiting for my own tousled headed boys to burst through the door at the end of the day, clutching drippy art work and usually wearing mismatched shoes and all the wrong clothes. Our walk to school in the morning took far too long as we stopped to examine all the signs of autumn. We gathered beech mast, old man's beard and conkers in their prickly cases. Shiny rook feathers and clusters of hips and haws were carefully transported to the nature corner, or taken home to be copydexed on to shoe boxes or toilet roll tubes in precious compositions.
With their schooldays long behind them, I gradually morphed into a teacher. And this year I am a new girl all over again, with a new job in a new school. As I dragged my brand new books and pads and pens from the car and opened the classroom door, I carefully found a place for the bunch of hedgerow berries and leaves. And I pinned the rook feathers onto the noticeboard. Let the new year begin!
It is a hushed, waiting time on the tracks and trails now. The shifting Gulf Stream finally brought a return to recognisable weather and it has rained. 'Usable rain', I heard it called on the radio. The grass has greened but it will take a long time before the great cracks across the land are healed. Levels on our Somerset reserves and waterways remain low. The garden has suffered in the brittle, dry heat. I tipped the contents of several old hanging baskets into the chicken run and they rushed to scratch through it, breaking up the roots and scavenging the bugs and mini beasts inside. Lettuces have gone to seed and the large white butterflies (pieris brassicae) have devastated the cabbages. There are so many this year and their yellow and black caterpillars have feasted.
We went into the mothy night to listen for owls. There was no moon and our dark, Somerset sky was full of stars. The last of the Perseid meteors, debris from an ancient comet, fireworked across the sky. Bilbo started an urgent, familiar dance and under the hedge we found his spiky prey. He is good at leaving them alone, but would so love to investigate! We have seen several hedgehogs in the garden, including a couple of young ones. How lovely that they have bred here this year. Get fat now guys, feed up before the long sleep.
The hedgerows and reserves are quiet. The swifts have disappeared from our skies. Suddenly they are gone, screaming south before the wind changes. There are still swallows and martens in good numbers. House martens are visiting the eaves of the old farmhouse opposite, perhaps there is a (too) late brood in there? The warblers are quiet and even the rooks have cackled off to feeding grounds afar. Robin and blackbird are silent.
Along the canal, moorhen families fuss quietly in the reeds and young coots practise flexing their long, green toes. The kingfishers continue to patrol their stretch of water. They fly low and sit still and it is easy to miss them.
Hedgerow harvests are looking rich and full already. Dark clusters of elderberries are bending the branches low. Hips and haws are shining with the fire of autumn. Sloes glow fierce and blue, but they are small this year. The lime globes of mistletoe are looking fat and plentiful. And on the path behind the church, a tangle of hazel and hawthorn is draped with soft, frilly hop bines (humulus lupulus). Brambles are loaded. We picked them for a hedgerow crumble, with windfall apples scrumped from next door. Today, I found a plump pair of green hazlenuts (Corylus avellana) on the tow-path. They will be ripe when the soft leaves of the trees turn colour. But by then they will have been gathered up by the squirrels, wood mice, jays, wood pigeons and nuthatches, providing a high calorie feast at the changing of the season.
We don't often need to seek out the shade in a British summer. Sun-starved, we move our chairs out of the shadows; we walk on the sunny side of the street; we throw open the shutters and let the light in. It is noticeable that our garden plants do better in sunny spots, unless they are shade specialists. It is an overlooked gardening lesson: get the soil right, get the moisture right, get the light right too. Generally, we feel better in the sunshine and warmth. To sit long into the soft night - as the moths sip from night scented flowers, the bats hawk and twist in the purple air and the family of tawny owls chuckle and chatter from the barn - is one of life's rare pleasures. We know we must protect our skin too. 'Any suntan is skin damage', I read years ago in a beauty magazine and so we cover up when we travel to the sun and acknowledge that perhaps a youthful complexion is one benefit of living in our cool, green climate.
Perhaps we don't think very much about the need for shade until we go on holiday and notice those heavy shutters which are used to protect interiors from the heat of the day. And those colourful, striped awnings over shop fronts really do make sense when we feel the heat of the midday sun. Suddenly, siesta seems very sensible. We appreciate the landscaping that makes towns and cities bearable. In the desert climate of north western Argentina's city of Mendoza, channels of cool flowing water (acequias) from the snowmelt in the Andes, irrigate the shade trees and keep the temperature comfortable. It is hard to imagine the Alhambra Palace in Granada, without the sound of running water and the cooling influence of its cascades, fountains and symbolic pools. Water, and the power of reflection in its mirrored surfaces, is one of the key elements of Islamic paradise gardens. Dubai, that city where there really shouldn't be a city, is surprisingly green and well irrigated. And yet in the fierce heat of the desert summer, it is still too hot for humans to linger in the sun. Even the bus stops are air conditioned.
This year, the gulf stream has looped far to the north of Europe - and there it has stayed, bringing us sustained periods of hot, dry weather. It doesn't feel like Britain. It doesn't look much like it either; gardens, parks and hedgerows are the colour of straw and plants have gone to seed. Harvest is starting early. At least there is dry weather to bring it safely in, even if the late and cold spring has reduced yields. Here, on the misty, green Somerset Levels, the rivers are low and the ditches and rhynes are all dried up. Our wildlife pond could do with a top up too. In this land of rain, we don't always regard water as precious. A summer such as this makes us think carefully about how we use it and save it and guard it.
However, our wonderful, gleaming wetlands are still teeming with life. At Ham Wall it is a good year for butterflies, dragons, damsels and frogs. Like us, the creatures have learned to hide during the heat of the day, but early in the day and later in the afternoon there is plenty to see. They need to go about their essential business: feeding their young and building up fat reserves.
On an early run this morning, I hugged the line of the hedge. As I ran up the hill past the cemetery, I was grateful for the deep, dark shade. Somerset has a rich network of species-rich hedgerows and field boundaries. Many, around the village are steeply banked, suggesting ancient trackways carved into the land. And I noticed the importance of shade and the ability to get out of the sun. We don't usually hide from it in this country but how nice, just sometimes, to have the choice!
