Heading Into September.

 I wonder if Blogger will let comments publish today. What with this problem and the slow updating of blogs on reading lists I'm starting to wonder if Blogger is trying to fade quietly away.

This painting was on Tuesday's post but I like it, so putting it on here again.

Young September's Cornfield 1954

Oil on board

Alan Reynolds (1926-2014)

Below is ............................         Young September's Cornfield 2026 

                                                                 by me (1955 - ), 

                                                              with my big camera

 Already the field had been harvested, cleared and  disc-harrowed ready for whatever comes next - possibly oil seed rape which is often drilled straight in when a field hasn't been ploughed................or they might go back and plough ......I shall see later.

**************************

I've started on the autumn garden clearing- although haven't tackled the four huge Buddleias yet. BiL cut one right back with his chainsaw last year but it  put on 8 foot of growth regardless. Each bit has to be chopped up to fit in the garden waste bin and takes an age. I raked up all the small fallen apples from under the Minarette trees - I thought to leave them for the birds for winter but seeing as so many had codling moth maggot damage they need getting rid of.

************************************

The BBC have decided to end Ski Sunday after nearly 50 years of Sunday evening winter viewing for ordinary people who are never likely to go skiing- very sad. I liked to watch for the snowy views. Bad BBC!

On the other hand they had a brilliant programme from The Royal Albert Hall Proms - Bond Themes played by the huge BBC Concert Orchestra. It was really good. Most of the annual Proms festival is too highbrow for me but can you imagine the outcry from the rich and famous if the beeb were to stop broadcasting the Proms!

This week I've been watching some of the British Open Snooker and  something called Tout le Monde Ment. - It's French! - translates as Everyone Lies, crime of course. A short series of eight, originally shown between 2022 and 2025. It's on Walter Presents on 4. No details anywhere if  French TV are likely to make more. 

Have you seen the trailer for a new programme starting soon on Channel 4 called Apocalypse?

In this bold and ambitious social experiment, Channel 4 is sending a group of ordinary people to a jaw dropping, real world location - an abandoned town that bears all the hallmarks of being ravaged by an apocalyptic event. 

It sounds very odd - but apt for all the dire warnings of cyber attacks, weather abnormalities and wars!

***********************

Compared to the week before, this week has been much quieter. I've only spoken to ladies at Keep Moving group, son on the phone and Kirsty who cuts my hair. There was some wild, windy and wet weather  for a while on Friday morning showing me the gutters need cleaning out. Not sure me and a ladder are a good idea any more - may need to get a man in - no one in the family would jump at the chance to clean out gutters either!

Another view of the disc-harrowed fields up the lane not far from home.

I can't decide which to visit today - car boot sale in one direction or a village garage/yard sale event in the other direction.

 Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday

Flowers and Books Or Books and Flowers

 As mentioned the other day I went to the Flower Festival with stalls at Crowfield Church mainly for their second hand book stall. I also got some cheap plums from their produce stall, ate a few but added the rest to the freezer for the next batch of compost/mixed fruit jelly. It's mainly apple peels and cores but adding some whole cheap fruit means it makes a bit more jelly with a better colour.

Just found two books this time (I'm beginning to think that they save the books from year to year!) and it was threatening rain and so dark and gloomy in the church and very busy that I didn't take any good photos of the Flower Festival which had a theme of 'Desert Island Discs'

I've just finished the Evie Woods book - The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris-  borrowed from the library. I enjoyed it and had read another two of her books a few years back. They all have a bit of mystery and magic about them. This one sounds similar. All books were for sale for 50p each.

With the flower festival theme of Desert Island Discs, some people went for Islands, others for people who had featured on the radio programme and others choose their own music or a luxury item that they would take to an island themselves.

There was a leaflet with details of the villagers who created the lovely arrangements but I handed that back on my way out and the notes on each display with a number and  details were very small and I didn't get them in the photos. So apologies to the brilliant florists!

Just editing in to say that it seems Bloggers latest blip is not being able to publish comments anywhere! Hopefully short term.  I've tried to comment on several blogs this morning but no luck.

Nutting Day - Revisiting A Post from 2018

 Did you know September 3rd was traditionally known as Nutting Day? No, I didn't either, until 2018 when I came across all this information and wrote this post.

According to the book 'Cattern Cakes and Lace' (Julia Jones and Barbara Deer, 1987).......this is the day on which children would traditionally go to the local wood to gather hazelnuts. All villages would have had local hazel coppices as the wood was so important for hurdles - no wire netting or electric fencing back then.

So what can I find out about hazelnuts (Corylus avellana).

From a little book called 'Nature in Your Basket' by Richard Mabey..............
Pollen deposits suggest that between the retreat of the glaciers and the arrival of mature forest some 9,000 years ago, hazel was the commonest tree across much of Britain, and it must have been one of the most important sources of vegetable food for Stone Age hunter gatherers.

 From the book 'Discovering the Folklore of Plants 'by Margaret Baker..............
The Celtic world treated hazel as a holy tree. Its nuts were connected with poetry, knowledge, love, fertility and childbirth. In the Scottish Highlands hazel was one of the nine sacred woods used in kindling needfire at Beltane. (Need-fire, or Wild-fire, a fire caused by friction is a term used in folklore to denote a superstition which survived in the Scottish Highlands until a recent date.) 
Hazel is the wood often used for divining rods and  if you stir jam with a hazel stick the fairies will not steal it!
The nuts were given the names of potential husbands and thrown into the fire by young girls. The loudest bang as the nut exploded or brightest flame showed which man she would marry.

Apart from the well known use of coppiced hazel for hurdle making, it was also used for baskets and the bast or stringy inner bark could be used as a tying material. The wood was used for carved walking sticks and broom handles and the oil from the nuts could be used as a polish. The nuts can be ground and added to flour for a flavoured pastry and like almonds can be used to make milk.

I'd try these ideas for cooking with hazelnuts.......if only the squirrels didn't take them before I get a look in.

That was 2018 before moving  here.

 I planted a Red Hazel in the border here in 2022, it's 6 foot tall now but every summer it soon reverts to green and only goes back to red leaves with the new spring growth. Whereas the huge Red Hazel in BiL's garden (from a seedling which popped up at the smallholding years ago) stays red-leaved most of the year. I think there's a draught along the side of my bungalow that hits the Hazel and causes it stress. It has about 4 pink tinged nuts on it this year - the first I've seen. I went along the footpath not far from home to see how many nuts on an ordinary Hazel tree that grows there - None!