The last leaf on the walnut and the first crumpet by the fire. Butter, enough to reach the depths, and Marmite or honey: both (on separate crumpets). We can’t stop autumn, so let’s celebrate it – which would be easier without the racket of the infernal leaf-blowers. Could they be banned on public nuisance grounds, or taxed out of existence? Dream on… Anything that can be mechanized eventually will be – and then handed over to a robot.
Meanwhile, raking the leaves this afternoon, shaking them out of shrubs, off the climbers, into piles on the path, I mused on whether I prefer them wet or dry. It rained this morning so I had no choice, but wet leaves do have advantages. They stay put, for a start – and they are silent. The only sound (blowers next door apart) is the scratching of the rake.
Their disadvantage: they’re heavy, and having no compost heap I have to bag them and lug the heavy bags through the house. I dream of the kind of leafmould bins we had in the country…..
Indoors, bookshelves beckon. Gardening books are perennial: they don’t have to be topical: next year they’ll just be agreeably familiar. Some, indeed, I reread in a continuous rolling process. Christopher Lloyd’s Well-tempered Garden just goes round and round, and I can be lost for an evening in Peter Beales’ Roses. The revolving year, of course, is the bane of magazine editors. Repetition is inevitable; originality rare (and risky). In what other field are century-old texts still valid? Anomalies just add to their interest.
The last yellow leaves of the ‘autumn’ cherry fell today; how thrilled I was to see its slim branches spangled all over with little flowerbuds.
