Last Week in October

The trees are undressing, and fling in many places -

On the gray road, the roof, the window-sill -

Their radiant robes and ribbons and yellow laces;

A leaf each second so is flung at will,

Here, there, another and another, still and still.

A spider's web has caught one while downcoming,

That stays there dangling when the rest pass on;

Like a suspended criminal hangs he, mumming

In golden garb, while one yet green, high yon,

Trembles, as fearing such a fate himself anon.

by Thomas Hardy

Art imitating Life

Arbutus wallpaper designed by Kathleen Kersey for Morris & Co 1913

The Strawberry tree

Nuf said

You must have a holiday

According to Running a House without Help

by Rose Henniker Heaton,

(first published in 1949 when people were having to get used to the almost universal problem of running a house without servants)

there are certain symptoms that appear when the patient is in urgent need of a holiday,

in order to avoid a breakdown.

One, when you feel sure the whole house will collapse without you.

Two, when you feel too tired to travel.

Three, when you cannot sleep for planning.

Four, when you order the same dish five days running.

Five, when you simply cannot stand a crowd of people.

Six, when you cannot bear to be left alone for a minute.

" The sun will set without thine assistance."

The Talmud

I'd like

room for a tree to grow to its full unobstructed glory,

a window fastening like this,

a walled garden,

a plashing waterfall,

a duck on a dark

pond like this,

properly pruned dogwood,

feathery pampas grass not squashed in a tiny front garden,

performing acers,

a casual cupola

and a bag of sweet chestnuts to take home with me.

I had it all at Wakehurst Place yesterday.

The Burning of the Leaves

Now is the time for the burning of the leaves.

They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke

Wandering slowly into the weeping mist.

Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves!

A flame seizes the smouldering ruin, and bites

On the stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist.

The last hollyhock's fallen tower is dust:

All the spices of June are a bitter reek,

All the extravagant riches spent and mean.

All burns! the reddest rose is a ghost.

Sparks whirl up, to expire in the mist: the wild

Fingers of fire are making corruption clean.

Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare,

Time for the burning of days ended and done,

Idle solace of things that have gone before,

Rootless hope and fruitless desire are there:

Let them go to the fire with never a look behind.

The world that was ours is a world that is ours no more.

They will come again, the leaf and the flower, to arise

From squalor of rottenness into the old splendour,

And magical scents to a wandering memory bring;

The same glory, to shine upon different eyes.

Earth cares for her own ruins, naught for ours.

Nothing is certain, only the certain spring.

by Laurence Binyon 1869 -1943

Actually I prefer to bag the leaves up for leaf mould,

but bramble, bindweed and bracken

I will happily consign to the flames.

The burning of the leaves -
an everyday occurrence in Kerala.

Bright spots

in an Autumn day.

The visitor

This is not our cat.

He lives next door and is a curious mix of very bold

(he comes right upstairs)

and very twitchy,

(he runs away if I so much as look at him).

His name is Billy but I call him Mr Mistoffelees.

I've seen him catch a mouse.

Wednesday Wandering

North westwards.

Along the Chelsea Embankment,

turning eastwards into Swan Walk,

and into the Chelsea Physic Garden,

founded in 1673 by the Society of Apothecaries of London,

so that their apprentices could learn to grow medicinal plants and study their uses.

When the garden was founded 'physic' meant

'pertaining to things natural as distinct from the metaphysical.'

I'm sorry I didn't take a more care to note down the plant names -

they were meticulously labelled.

Fortune's Tank pond.