There's a lovely scent in the air....

I can smell autumn on the breeze...it's only August, but I already feel like I'd quite like to light the fire. The blackberries in the hedgerows outside are fat and juicy, there are pumpkins growing in my veggie patch and the leaves from next door's pretty, ornamental cherry tree are blowing wildly around my garden in their hundreds. I love this time of year, I love it when you can feel the season's blending, summer giving way to autumn, my absolute favourite season...I feel warm and secure and full of a contented glow, and I know that all is well in my world.

Yule ~ The festival of rebirth

Ok, I realise this is more than a little bit late, I was half tempted to leave it out altogether, but I'd been doing so well at blogging about the Festivals, and it seemed a shame to quit when I'd almost made a whole year...so VERY briefly, here are a few words about what Yule means for me:



The Winter solstice (C.21st Dec), the shortest day and longest night of the year. After this night, the days shall grow just marginally longer and the sun begins it's ascent once more. This is a festival of great jollity & feasting ~ an affirmation of hope in dark times, when people buy treats and package them in bright colours and ribbons. The house is filled with greenery to represent life ongoing, and yule logs are burnt to celebrate warmth and welcome back the sun. Altough this festival celebrates the returning light, we recognise the importance of both light and dark, and it is fitting to set aside some time before all the merriment commences to honour the darkness ~ now is a dormant time, all the world is resting & without time to rest ourselves and recharge, we couldn't possibly acquire the strength we need to live.



Traditional symbols and associated bits and bobs...

Colours: White, Green

Flowers/Foliage: evergreen trees, holly, ivy, mistletoe

Gods/Goddess: sun gods, virgin goddesses

Symbols: yule log. shiny things (representing light, and lots of it!)

Foods: fruit cake, spiced biscuits, rich meats



(Beware, scary photo ahead...!)

Meteor shower...

:-( Rain, rain, rain...Didn't see a thing...Oh well, maybe next time!

Leonid Meteor shower...

Ok, I had heard vague rumours of this shower but didn't know what a 'Leonid' was, so this is what Wikipedia has to say :
"The Leonids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to stream from that point in the sky. The 2009 display peaking on November 17 may produce more than 500 meteors an hour"
Oooooh, much excitement in our household! (well, from me in any case, Mr Boo finds space a bit daunting I think, and prefers not to look at it...) I however, very much enjoy a bit of star gazing...Further research tells me there will be a Geminid meteor shower in December, (which interests me, as a Gemini y'see...) although it's always possible I was looking at an old website, I'll have to check...In the meanwhile, all eyes to the sky people! (That is to say, people, look at the sky, not look at the 'sky people', I don't know anything about the existence of such folk, if there are sky people, they may well wish to be left alone...far be for me to tell you go peeking at them...)

Samhain - The Festival of the Dead

Halloween - a time to honour the past and connect with a sense of who you are & where you come from. In days of old, death and the dead were constantly present and as such, treated with less fear. Use this time to honour and pay respect to ancestors, friends and all those who are no longer with us. It is said that the veil between worlds is thin at this time, and food was often left out to nourish the souls of the departed, whilst pumpkins carved with ghoulish faces were intended to scare away any dark and sinister spectres who might otherwise be tempted to wander your way. This time marks the last harvest, the winter slaughter, the death of the crops and the rest cycle of the land. Death and decay in the natural world, reminds us of our own mortality...

We spent this Samhain (pronounced sow-in) with a couple of friends at a spectacular bonfire/firework display in Sidbury, I think they usually hold it on the 5th November, but with Halloween falling on a Saturday this year I guess they decided to combine the two. There was a really good atmosphere, with fire jugglers and drumming and dancing, one of my friends commented that it really did feel as though we were 'summoning the dead'! There were great beams of light being cast into the sky that seemed to stretch for miles, and as the ash from the bonfire floated into the shafts of light we reflected how it looked as though they could be the souls of the dead passing from one world to the next, it was a really good way to get into the swing of the festival. One day I would love to go the vivid and colourful Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico, I think that death really is treated with far too much fear, darkness and awkwardness...I don't deny that mourning and tears have their place, and I know that my heart will break whenever I lose someone close to me, but there is no reason why death cannot be a celebration: A celebration of the life that was, a celebration of moving onto a better place, whether you believe in Heaven, or reincarnation, or of blending once more into the cosmos and becoming one with everything...In the worst case, all that will happen is nothing (and I personally don't believe that, but...) , that's really nothing to fear, as you won't be aware of it will you??! A celebration of change: without change, life stagnates. A celebration of the unknown...Death should be revered and respected as the last great adventure you will ever take, it should be celebrated in full technicolour! But enough, I digress....



After a fabulously noisy and colourful firework display, our celebrations concluded at home, with spicy pumpkin soup, fondue (just 'cause my fondue pot reminds me of a cauldron really!), sweet pumpkin pie, toffee apples, hot mulled cider and oodles of sweets (no trick or treaters ever call here, we're down something of a narrow, spooky country lane, which unsurpisingly, children don't seem to want to navigate in the dark on this particular night! Nevertheless, I always buy sweets just in case...!), the table set with one extra place for any wandering and hungry souls. It was a fun and light-hearted festival this year, usually we would spend a portion of the evening being a little more reflective and talking of relatives who have passed away, but somehow this year it didn't seem called for. We honoured those who walked before us, happy in the knowledge that we are connected to them, as future generations shall be connected to us, part of one great family tree, from the oldest root to the newest bud.


Traditional symbols and associated bits and bobs...
Colours: black
Flowers/fruits: pomegranates, apples
Gods/Goddess: Persephone-queen of the underworld
Symbols: jack-o-lanterns, skeletons, cauldrons
Foods: pumpkins, pan de muerto (bread of the dead), sweet things, spiced cider

Elderberry syrup

Inspired by last night's episode of countryfile (oh yes!) we went on another foraging expedition today for elderberries. Elderberry syrup is said to be a cure-all medicine as well as being super tasty, more effective than tamiflu (and much safer!) as well as making a tasty mixer for many an alcoholic beverage (it's purely for medicinal purposes, promise!)and, we have discovered, much fun to make...we adapted the recipe based on what we had to hand and based the quantities on a few recipes we found online, they used star anise on the tv, which I bet would've been lovely, but we've run out, so here's what we did...
pick all the berries off their stalks (I reckon we had about 1.5 kg) and put in a pan, just covered with water, add a big chunk of root ginger, 20 cloves and a stick of cinnamon, bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour. Strain through muslin and add 1lb of sugar and the juice of a lemon for every pint of juice you have (we had about 3), stir 'til sugar is dissolved and then boil rapidly for 10 mins. At this point we decided it wasn't syrupy enough and boiled it for too long, and now it's cooled its turned into jam(!) so we have returned it to the heat and diluted it with water, it's now a much happier consistancy and tastes scrummy...I am now rather looking forward to the first cold of the season!

Foraging fun!

I have just had a lovely weekend with an old pal, spent foraging in the hedgerows and woodlands for autumnal abundance! We picked blackberries and elderberries which we made into autumn fruit cobbler:

Put lots of berries in an oven proof dish, sprinkle with sugar and set aside while you make the topping...
For the topping:
100ml milk, slightly warmed
1 teaspoon lemon juice
100g plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
75g butter
100g dessicated coconut
50g caster sugar
Add the lemon juice to the milk and set aside. Rub the butter into the flour and baking powder, then add the sugar and coconut, mixing well. Add the milk and lemon juice (which will be a bit gross and curdled, hmmmm) to form a dough which you dollop onto the fruit in sticky blobs, each 'cobbler' not quite touching the next, and bake in the oven at 180 deg. for about half an hour. Yum yum!

Having feasted on such lovelies we decided to go and see what else we could find, feeling in such a joyful and autumnal mood, as I remembered spotting some sloes recently...With much excitement we went looking for, and found, an as yet undiscovered patch of sloes (the location of which I shall of course be keeping secret in true country forager style...) before going on and searching for chestnuts ( it was a bit early for this I feel, and the ones we got were tiny and useless, but we were just in such a fruits of nature mood that we couldn't help ourselves!) We then went home and spent a lovely evening drinking wine, watching a film and nattering about nonsense as we made sloe gin...

Sloe gin: 450g sloes
115g sugar
75cl gin
Prick a hole or two in each and every sloe, (with a blackthorn spike you took from the tree as you were gathering the sloes for personal preference, or a darning needle if not...) this is best done as described, with good friends and a glass or two of something warming, putting them into bottles as you go. When done, add the sugar and then pour on the gin. Give it a good shake and "ooh!" and "aah!" as the gin, sugar and sloes mingle, get cosy and merge into pretty pinks. This mixture needs to be shaken every day (or whenever you're passing, just cos it's fun) for a week, then weekly for a month or two, then strained to remove the fruit, at which point you can drink it, but if you have the will power, it really is better to leave it to mature for a year.