AUTUMN PROCRASTINATIONS

The Pomegranates

I note from assiduous research that I have failed yet again to post any new blogs… the last one was in early spring, to judge from the photograph of foul weather that accompanies it. Then there’s the picture of Belle and Bill… well, Bill has grown up now and will shortly be ready for the pot so to speak. Belle has lost her bell and the flock creeps silently and unannounced about the place, their whereabouts given away only by the patter of hooves and munching.  Summer has passed without a word from me, and now it’s gone. Still, there’s always the autumn, and autumn is one of the loveliest seasons; up there with spring, summer and winter in fact. Ana the Wife says that autumn is like a second spring, in that there is a new flowering and budding and blooming and greening, just before the dead hand of winter puts the mockers on it all for a couple of months. To this end I’ve just been down to the valley with the camera – a device I detest – to take some photos to illustrate this fact. (The main reason as it happens, that I am so slack with the blogging is my extreme reluctance to use the camera. We have one of those absurd modern ones that has a screen instead of a viewfinder. In this screen I see only a bright reflection of myself, hence the erratic nature of my photography. Anyway, judge for yourself.)

Too late... the asparagus flower.

One of the most striking heralds of the end of summer is the wild asparagus. All summer long it looks as dead as a dugong; you cannot imagine that there is still a living cell in the tortuous desiccated bush of it. Then one day in early September you are dazzled by what look like heaps of snow. From the bleached white thorns of Asparagus alba come clouds of exquisite white flowers, with a deliciously erotic musky scent. It really is the most unexpected and glorious sight. I planned to take a photo of it to show you… but one thing led to another and I put it off day after day after day… and now the best of it has gone, and there are only the berries that contain the seeds of the new plants. Thus procrastination. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

The rest of the photos are what I loosely call ‘art shots’, to illustrate the wonders of autumn. The other wonders of autumn are mushrooms in the woods, woodsmoke in the villages, pomegranates, coolness, low sunlight, and – miracle of miracles – water falling gently from the sky to water the earth and its plants; that is to say rain.

Urginea maritima - Art shot

Three Urgineas