Autumn Cottage Diarist: A Month in the Country 31 - Tomorrow, I Will Plant Snowdrops!

Three weeks ago, we were wilting in temperatures of 34C here in North Hampshire – tonight, I have a thick wool poncho cosily wrapped around my shoulders, and just for the evening, the central heating has been clicked on. The bees are thrilled to find the Sedums flowering, there are windfall apples falling frequently under the old tree now, (time to make chutney!) and leaves are starting to carpet the pond (time to get the net on).

During this lovely month that I have spent with you all, my friends, the season has truly turned – and we have, I think, also tried to turn towards the future, trying to put the negativities of the last eight months behind us as we return to the (now very different) routines of school, work and social lives, while realising, deep in our psyches, that we have all been changed in some way though our experience of the pandemic. For some of us, only small, but real changes, for others, events resulting in devastating loss, grief and disorientation.

And though it all, I have had the privilege of my garden outside my door, and my friends over the internet ‘airwaves’ – friends with whom I have also shared these 31 days of musings from the countryside and friends who have been so generously sharing their thoughts and responses to the journal prompts – all of which I now intend to go through and re-read at my leisure and pleasure.

I hope some of you will also return to the prompts if any have caught your interest – remember that life is a Spiral Journey, so each visit that you make, over time, will always bring a fresh perspective.

Thank you all so very much for coming along with me on this little journey through August 2020; hopefully I will look in with an offering at the blog on a much more regular basis – this time with you all has reminded me just how much recording and sharing my thoughts around the Autumn Cottage year most definitely still has something to recommend it.

But for now - let’s turn our faces towards the golden sunshine of September! The garden may be slowly preparing to take a rest – but we gardeners are always thinking ahead – and tomorrow – I will plant snowdrops! (and Iris…and narcissi – springtime will be here before you know it! 😊)

I leave you with probably my favourite poem of all time, to uplift your hearts at any time should you need it. A reminder to turn, always, to the natural world, of which we are all part, to find healing for body and soul.

Many blessings to you all, dear friends - many blessings

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

Journal Prompt

How will you turn your face towards the Autumn – with pleasure, or with trepidation? Are you starting out on any new adventures at the beginning of the ‘learning year’? How will you spend the longer evenings and the colder days (in the Northern Hemisphere – for my friends in the Southern Hemisphere – what does the approach of Spring and Summer with their longer, hotter days bring for you?)

How – and where – will you find ‘The Peace of Wild Things’?