It is 6am. Barely light outside, with only the setting moon casting a faint gleam over the trees. Not much birdsong now: a few robins and blackbirds disputing prize territories, sparrows gossiping in their home tree, and then the last of the night’s owl exchanges, the reedy tones of this year’s youngsters bouncing back and forth from the oak to the ash trees in the wood. The sky in the east starts to glow, that ephemeral tint of an autumn dawn, with its candy floss streamers drifting slowly across the sky over Landy Marsh Wood.
It is all stillness: cold, but not really cold, just unwarmed, that earth heat of August dissipated. The night jewellers have been busy, threads spun from stem to stem and leaf to leaf, tiny diamonds catching the rising sun. Mist lingers over the fields. On the camera trap, the hedgehogs have picked up their pace, hurrying back and forth through the borders and the wood, laying on those precious reserves before shorter days and colder nights summon them to hibernate. I surprised one a few nights ago, his presence betrayed by the scrunching of dry leaves as he hoovered his way along, unsure as soon as he heard me whether to run for it or freeze. The dog, recently arrived from Dubai and utterly unaccustomed to anything other than humans, sand and indoor life, was flabbergasted at this small spiky creature.
Light rises. The morning peace is shattered by the jays squabbling over acorns, and squirrels tussling and hissing over the walnuts. The Bramley apple tree looks as if someone has anchored it, branches pegged to the ground with the weight of fruit, wasps waking up to breakfast on the apple juice. This year’s frogs leap out of the way when I walk through the longer grass by the pond, while in the compost bin used for kitchen scraps a very plump toad sits smug and warm, feasting on the fruit flies. Everywhere leaves are crunching underfoot, yet they were dropped three weeks ago, a desperate effort by the parched sycamores and chestnuts to conserve energy. It is a known response from mature trees, this act of shedding to preserve vital heartwood life, but it still feels troubling, at odds with the balance of nature like so much else in our world. Happily our huge lime tree and oak seem relatively unperturbed by the privations of this summer; time will tell whether the young trees will come through so blithely.
September and its cast iron associations with the end of summer and back to school are so welded into the collective British consciousness, yet here, now, untethered from term dates, it is not so distinct. The garden is confused - drought and heatwave reduced it to crisped dereliction, beyond salvation in parts, yet rain has resuscitated some of the August stars, bringing life back to dahlias, rudbeckias, gauras and asters.
Some inhabitants have barely missed a beat, thriving on the high temperatures and dry ground. The grasses are towering over their neighbours, while the roses, those grandes dames of English gardens, remind you of their tough Central Asiatic ancestry and bloom undiminished.
This, in regal crimson, for her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, in gratitude for a life of service.
RIP.
Comments