"For much of October we can play at autumn. We get golden sunlight, tapestry-like hillsides, morning mists, all without any great drop in temperature: a gentle slide into everything good about autumn. We light the fire because we can, because it's October, not because we are so cold that we have to. The countryside is ravishing, and ripening before our eyes, every hedgerow glistening with lipstick-red hips and purple elderberries, hazelnuts and walnuts and glossy sweet chestnuts in their hedgehog casings, every tree a different shade. The year's spiders are now fully grown, and are suddenly everywhere, stretching their webs over hedges and across the garden path, the fine strands breaking across your face each morning.
Gather in nuts and logs and final crops, because towards the end of the month things start to feel more serious. Frosts arrive and the clocks go back, and we remember what this ripening is all about. The Anglo-Saxons called this month Winterfylleth, a word composed of 'winter' and 'full moon', and they thought that winter began on October's full moon, which falls this year on the 24th. Prematurely pessimistic, perhaps, but night and cold are slowly becoming dominant."
From The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2018 by Lia Leendertz.
~
Suitably autumnal (blackberry, raspberry, and fig) frangipane tarts from a new and excellent local discovery, The Pastry Section in Edinburgh's Stockbridge, near Armstrong the fishmonger. If you should go there, look out especially for the sublime Persian love cakes (devoured before I could photograph them).
Didn't know about this one Karen! Thank you. Will investigate with my son this week.
Posted by: Anne B-A | 09 October 2018 at 02:30 PM
Do go, Anne - everything we've had from them has been tremendous!
Posted by: Cornflower | 09 October 2018 at 03:10 PM
If I ever get to Edinburgh, I shall be sure to find my way there!
Posted by: Toffeeapple | 10 October 2018 at 07:50 PM
Anything made with frangipane is going to be good. Shame I live the other end of Britain!
I read of this Almanac and wondered. Wonder if it will be published annually?
Posted by: Fran H-B | 14 October 2018 at 02:31 PM