I marvelled for a long time at this.
When we walk to our waterfall (ok it's not ours but as good as) sometimes it's good just to watch.
We picked apples, cooking, eating, then pears and pumpkins. It was a blue gentle sky day, we ate as we picked.
I made stew, a sausage and thick veg sort and made everyone happy so it came around that I was too.
Late at night my dh works and makes the fireplace ready..
For this.... our big Autumn excitement. Fire. I love fire; the way it banishes the need for excessive talk or TV (not that we have one but still). The focal point in a room, like a living thing all of it's own. It breathes out and warms, it draws in and comforts. I am a wriggling mass of excitement waiting for this to arrive (more so than anyone else). Not long now. So simple, so elemental but so right and necessary feeling.
How can our veg patch, so small, still produce, even with the breath of frost? It does. Even flowers.
Leeks and nasturtiums and the swiss chard that I have eaten my fill of, really, I totally have. Urgh. Beautiful chard, have a little rest now. Feed the earth, my belly has been filled by you!
5 comments:
Wonderful snapshot of autumn, thank you for sharing your restful and inspiring & wonderfully seasonal thoughts. x
wonderful post, I feel your excitement, one of the reasons we bought this house was because of the open fire.
enjoy xx
"I made stew, a sausage and thick veg sort and made everyone happy so it came around that I was too"
Love it! Nothing more fulfilling than having the family enjoy a hearty, warming dish that you made for them with love.
xxx
Funny you talking about fire. I was watching Ray Mears last night (I love his programmes) and he was watching men from an African tribe making fire with sticks. He marvelled that even though these men made fire every day of their lives, the joy never left them and it was always seen as a magical and sacred thing.
Sadly, we don't have a fire of any kind here so I have to make do with candles. I think humans have sat round fire for so long that it is as much a part of us as water and air and we really miss it when it's not there. We are hoping to move at some point and I have put a REAL fire on my list of things I really, really want. My list isn't very long, REAl FIRE, CHICKENS and VEGGIE GARDEN. Those are what I crave for!!
Pippa! Me too. Two houses ago we lived in a semi urban 1030's semi with a tiny garden. My boys were both small and I just longer with every fibre of my being to have a veggie garden, a real fire instead of a pretend empty grate (even a bonfire set my heart alight, but they were few being with only a tiny garden and living semi-urban.) I just longed and longed for these such basic things! It's strange how sometimes our world makes it so hard to be basic and enjoy things so elemental to our well being and sense of self. Growing food, fire. Just parts of human life which are hard to extinguish. Part of our behavioural genealogy maybe? The next house we moved to was in rural wales with a wood stove. It was magic and it fed something in me that was marvellous. But no place for veg again (crazy in rural wales but true). When we were again looking to rent I longed again for a wood burner or AGA and a garden where we could grow things. I would wish in an abstracted way for a teeny tiny stream for my children to paddle in nearby. This was the second house we looked at and I made my dh ring back that day in case someone else nabbed it. It's slightly too big really, it's in a damp dip of land, but it has and AGA some garden space and a stream! It seemed SO MUCH that I couldn't dare ask for more, or even look for more. And it's been fab. But cold, very damp and cold. This year I have felt it so much more already (I have lost body fat!). Our very distant aristocratic landlord popped over (the second time in nearly three years!) and I mentioned to coldness but that everything was fine really. he had no idea we had no fire in the sitting room and told us he was sure the chimney worked. That day he sent chimney sweeps around to check and clear it and then the next week a builder to make the fireplace a bit bigger to accommodate a wood stove! How kind! He is kind, my dh thinks he is keen for us to stay on as the last tennant was negligent with house and garden. And so I am waiting on tender hooks for the fire I will utterly relish. Every stick of wood I will give thanks for. Out land lord said he will give us some wood even to get us going (he uses a water mill to power his electricity, has a bio mass fuel thing that uses wood to heat his ginormous home - he lunches with Prince Charles so I wonder if they discuss much eco - expensive- energy stuff?) Either way a wood burner for us is small fry for him. But massive and lovely for us. Anyway, I don't suppose anyone wanted that waffle of a story but there you go - it was the path and longing to fire!
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