October in the woods

Scales Park near Nuthampstead, on the day the clocks went back – no commentary needed – the colours speak for themselves

What I know of the Divine Sciences and Holy Scripture, I learnt in the woods and fields. I have had no other masters than the beeches and the oaks.... Listen to a man of experience: thou wilt learn more in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach thee more than thou canst acquire from the mouth of a magister.

St Bernard of Clairvaux

fruits of autumn

Three late roses in the October garden – Mme Louise Odier – Compassion – and Tess of the d'Urbervilles

– some windfall Bramley apples under my tree – and a couple of quinces lying in the grass at Clare Priory – in the ruins of the medieval church

Dr Johnson once remarked that his favourite flower was a cauliflower

Clare Priory and some words of St Augustine

"In the silence we find God"

"God speaks to us in the great silences of the heart"

"You are the most hidden from us, and yet the most present"

In the crowd we find noise"

"In the silence we find God

"If only our minds could be held steady, they would be still for a while, and for that short moment we would glimpse the splendour of eternity which is forever still"

mostly trees

A spreading oak tree near Barkway – the green light of deciduous woodland on the way to Nuthampstead – a view of a giant straw-stack in the fields – and October sunshine filtering through leaves in a hedge

Pleasure lies in being, not in becoming
St Thomas Aquinas

 – and a home-made shed made with massive oak beams from the tree, nearby now a majestic ruin –

and a view of Strethall Church through the trees from the footpath near Littlebury Green – it has one of the oldest Saxon chancel arches in Cambridgeshire



– and a 16th century stained glass angel from the church in Barkway




What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly
Richard Bach

the pleasures of autumn

The pleasures of October – a day of sunshine and clear blue skies – a long walk in the countryside with kestrels and buzzards - getting home to make tea and sit in my kitchen with the gladioli that are flourishing in this late summer season –

– and stopping off on the way home to buy home-grown dahlias and tomatoes from a stall outside a village garden –  pumpkin, a marrow and shallots – all for pennies –  fresh and organic – and apples from my own Bramley apple tree –

– after the morning spent bringing in all the pots of geraniums from the garden, for their continued flowering in the conservatory, trimmed and fed and ready to bask in what will become a winter garden in the cold and colourless months until spring comes again –

I am a solitary and that is that. I love people OK, but I belong to solitude.

Thomas Merton

Autumn sunshine,  a cold day. A rope of guelder rose berries looped itself around bramble, brilliant scarlet. A blue tit was feeding on the last of the ripe blackberries, and fieldfares were schacking in the hedgerow. A company of skylarks was hovering over a ploughed field, easily identifiable from their song. A kestrel flew across into the wood.

An ancient oak, a sprig of its leaves in the sunshine, and acorns for the squirrels

A monk is a man who is separated from all and who is in harmony with all

Evagrius of Pontus

Oak: symbol of strength and endurance. Roger Deakin remarked that his house was once an acorn.

old man's beard – wild clematis - scrambling in the woods

It's a good sloe year this year, they are plentiful and full of sour juice. They say that to make the best sloe gin you must prick each sloe with a silver fork before covering with gin (and a few whole unpeeled almonds) and leave to mature for at least two years.

The last of the blackberries: they were late this year, and folklore advises not to eat them after October 10th, the anniversary of when Satan was cast out of Heaven by the Archangel Michael. He was banished because of his pride: he loved himself more than anybody else in the world and cared nothing about anything else. He crashed to Earth like a meteor, falling into the thorns of a bramble, cursing. The impact blasted a conical crater reaching to the centre of the Earth. He tumbled into the pit at the bottom where he’s been ever since, trapped and furious, accusing everyone but himself for his misfortunes.

Walking across from Meesden to Scales Park wood – about six miles in all – I saw two buzzards and disturbed a few fieldfares near where I saw my first flock last Friday, schack-schacking startled out of the hedgerow. Lovely to hear them again and see them back for the winter.

The "wilderness" of man's spirit is not totally hostile to all spiritual life. On the contrary, its silence is still a healing silence. He who tries to evade solitude and confrontation with the unknown God may eventually be destroyed in the meaningless chaotic atomized solitariness of mass society. 

Thomas Merton

the icknield way

Walking part of the Icknield Way near Great Chishill, convolvulus was scrambling through the nettles,  jays were screeching in the wood and autumn leaves beginning to fall.  Spindle and sloe were in berry, and a pair of buzzards circled over the fields.

 

Further along, on a stretch through woods near Royston, old  tree stumps have been left to die back, providing all kinds of invertebrates, mosses, lichens and insects with a habitat.

Only he who lives his life as a mystery is truly alive

Stefan Zweig

in the woods

Walking through a wood called Scales Park near Nuthampstead – found a worn wooden sign 'MAIN RUNWAY' – remnant from an American airbase  during World War II – London's third airport was scheduled here before Stansted won the day – and this ancient oak lives on, muntjack graze and stoats run around

– and you can smell the autumn fungi as soon as you enter the wide grassy walkway through the trees

Rosa canina has been left to flourish at the edge of the wood

Live simply and wisely
Henry Miller

a weekend walk in october

At Fen Drayton Lakes,  a kestrel perched in a dead tree, very close. It flew down and mobbed a crow who looked mildly annoyed and squawked in protest. I saw it later, hunting over marshy land by one of the lakes

A pair of swan, crested grebes, terns, and shovelers and widgeon among the many coots who gather here. Cormorants, herons and a little egret too...

… and a treefull of goldfinches in one of the wide walks full of autumn colour












It may be that, in a hundred years, the ambition of every sensitive man will be the tranquillity of a hermit's cell
William Golding