Ode to Autumn....

Sunday was one of those perfect sunny, cold days, of long walks, gusting winds, swirling leaves and pottering in the cottage. 

I wore my most comfortable River Island cords, DVF shirt and Monsoon cardigan with very old Joseph cow boy boots.

The pumpkin, destined for a hearty soup, was 75p from Aldi...

The soup bubbled nicely, my peacock tiles are an homage to our local star who had disappeared for a few weeks, only to reappear with a goose in tow, they are an odd couple, but devoted to each other.

By next year, I hope that I will have ample pumpkins growing in my beds.

My pumpkin lo cal pumpkin soup recipe.....
2 x onions fried in large saucepan
2 x leeks also friend
Fill with a kettle of water
Add the flesh of a pumpkin, roughly scraped out
A good splash of soya sauce
6 carrots
2 stock cubes
and a liberal sprinkle of cinnamon
Keep liquidy and pulpy or blitz to a smooth texture, whichever you prefer.

Here's the full poem, if anyone wants a reminder of Keats from their school days...

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,	5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;	10
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;	15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;	20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day	25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;	30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.