VILLAGE LIFE
Gospel from The Saints By Julia Collins, who lives in Saint Nicholas
W
e are entering that lovely golden part of the year when everything softens, mellowing in colour and texture. The harsher brightness we’ve enjoyed from the sun becomes more rounded, giving us warmth slightly later every day and, likewise, tucking itself away that bit earlier each afternoon — especially when the day’s brought a surprise sample of wintery weather. Now is the time to check the log store, pull out thicker jumpers and reintroduce woolly gloves to our daily sorties. Honing awareness that may well have already been sharpened (or perhaps awakened) during preceding months, we can again gorge our senses with all the delights nature has to offer. From the visual feast to the satisfaction of gathering from the hedgerows — bounty we can take home to process into delicacies to brighten the darker, wintery months. Cobnuts, sloes, rosehips, all available to those in the know. We can then savour the season’s gifts inside, filling shelves with jewelled jars of jellies and cordials.
Interesting to make, beautiful to look at and wonderful to consume or bestow as a gift. Hallow’een creates an entertaining focus. An excuse for a party, and outside is ideal. Pumpkins enjoy their annual attention, and nowadays this event spans several weeks. Chubby, orange faces gurn from doorsteps and front gardens well before and after the special day. Coinciding with half term, hallow’een begs some dressing up, scary masks at the very least, ghoulish face paint and terrifying talons almost de rigeur. Just a week later we celebrate Guy Fawkes, that unmistakeable signpost heralding winter. With the garden at least partly ‘put to bed’ it’s an excellent opportunity for a bonfire, perhaps a barbecue, and even more (by now well rehearsed and expertly executed) outdoor cheer. Gently but surely the daylight alters, but this year we will probably continue to meet up with friends more, and perhaps take long awaited holidays well into the actual winter. We have
learned to expand our ideas, appreciating and exploiting opportunities wherever they exist. ‘Seize the day, it might be taken away’ could be the theme resulting from the hampering lockdowns we endured. Now we realise that you really don’t know what is round the corner, procrastination is doubly unwise. Battening down the hatches, we’ve had plenty of that! Open the doors and windows when meeting up inside and certainly keep safe, but let’s stretch everything that the autumn has to offer.
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