Bonjour Susie! I had been visiting a friend in the south of France since the middle of September, and have just returned home and so have missed reading your lovely stories on Substack.
It seems only yesterday that you wrote 'Of Hope', and now here we are almost mid October, the 'lush green meadows' in France have mostly turned into golden tarp-covered ones, and though these past three weeks have been very warm (hot even), 'Le Mistral' winds seemed to have started blowing two days before my departure. It left me feeling quite sad for the changing season, and changing times.
I hope your school year is a good one, and that you are able , once in awhile, to say a polite 'non, je ne peut pas' to a few 'wonderful ideas' and 'projects'. If only to let you take time for self indulgences (like walking in the forest, reading and writing for your pleasure!).
And, the selfish part of me wants you to have time especially to write: ''I want to tell you how...''
Jeannine my most humble apologies for such an unforgivable delay in replying, Somehow I missed your lovely comment entirely and to think you were so close too...
Yes, the season has indeed turned another quarter cycle and autumn is advancing. We were gifted a most beautiful Indian summer right up until the first day of 'les vacances de Toussant and then sadly — or gladly depending on ones plans — dear MN decided it was time to replenish the rivers and streams, the skies turned grey, then black, and then opened. As I type rain is falling in torrents... it is needed but not loved!
This new year in classes has been complicated — an understatement, read that as a little slice of Hell — every class has its difficulties which to date we, as a team who work very much in harmony with each other, have found no solutions to. Our hands are tied in so many possible knots we are struggling to see tan untangled line to take. We are counting on our instincts being the only way forward, time will tell.
Needless to say I have had little time for walking, much less writing but have a mountain of notes ready for those days ahead which will see me confined (unwillingly of course!) to the inside of my home and with a little luck I will begin unravelling their delights tomorrow. Tonight is for catching up... as you can see, I am a little behind.
I wish you a cosy evening dear Jeannine and send you much love with the myriad coloured leaves being picked up by a rather boisterous wind. xx
Pas de soucis, Susie! I understand how the days can flit by faster than we can catch a fluttering autumn leaf! I always appreciate you taking some precious time to send me news.
Oh my, I do hope that things in school work out. So much is changing all over the world and having an impact on many facets of people's lives.
I wish you a quiet time for your 'catching up', and smoother sailing throughout the school year.
You too Jeannine, autumn is such a magical season, I believe it is designed that way to ease us into the months that follow with a little less trepidation.
Susie, I read your note to Katharine; “More and more often I wonder just how many more years I will be able to live on this hill” “…and my woodland and my sheep...all take huge energy which for now I have but for how long ?” Believe me, I know these thoughts, Susie. Not about my home, but my magical camp, where we spend almost three seasons a year,for 18 years. As always, late Autumn will undoubtedly chase us home when the leaves lay crumpling on the forest floor and snow blows across the lake. The frigid wind, invites itself right through the walls to our no longer cozy inside. As I huddle in my down vest, scarf and hat, by the fire place. For the last week, I box up, bag up, cover and carry, and right in the middle of lamenting, for a various reasons, will this be our last season here, will we physically be able to do the hard work that’s needed to own and be stewards of this enchanted place? My sister texted me from Florida, seemly a world away from my remote lake and beloved hills and mountains , telling me; “ Thankfully missed the deer, but hit a mail box surrounded by cinder blocks . She includes five photos of her car with severe damage, an MRI report and a hospital ER record. She is ok, not hospitalized, wearing what looks like armor to stabilize her Lumbar compression fracture that shattered and fragmented towards her spinal canal (retropulsion). She awaits her next appointment to see if she is surgical. (Luckily she understands little of her MRI, report and the severity of her injuries, but we do. Good drugs and ignorance, is bliss). That is to say, today is today , we are thankfully alive in this very moment. Shocked into telling myself, why are you worrying about what may or may not come to pass in the next year. Sometimes it takes ice cold water down our spines to open our eyes and set free the doubts of futures yet to be written. We know this already, but it is a hard reminder. I too, choose to believe the handsome hare with the lovely ears is still running through the fields. “I want to tell you…” That your writing and photographs are stunning. And I wish you would shake your head no once in awhile , “I am sorry, I just don’t have the time “, but your heart is full when you offer yourself up to endless acts of kindness. It is who you are. “… how four eager sheep creep so cleverly beneath low boughs, place one foot to rest on the trunk, then the other and throw back their heads to reach each tart fruit before I or the wind whisk them away.” Thank you for showing me with your words . I love this image! I am off to sleep, counting Quince and sheep.🐑 🐑🐑🐑
Dearest Lor, first, most important, I am so sorry to hear of your sisters accident, I hope what you understand of the MRI report and she doesn't isn't too life changing, that drugs and rest and ignorance with time will heal her. Coincidentally, my sister called me last night, a rare occasion so I knew. She too had an accident, a fall while walking her dog 10 days ago, a fractured tibia but awkwardly just under her knee, she is immobile, was immobile for her daughters wedding, heartbroken and now waiting surgery — the UK medical services are notoriously slow unless a life is threatened. I await news.
YES!! Carpe Diem! Because damn it we just don't know what the next holds in waiting... I cannot imagine being immobile so give thanks at least that I feel young enough in body — even if my face belies the truth — to continue with all the chores and the lifting and carrying and walking... Lordy, no walking, no forests and hills... 😔. I understand deeply the 'but for how long for?' I think perhaps, let's not go there but that's not so easy either, one has to be practical not emotional, also hard and one cannot change the nature of a lifetime, at least not in a day.
I am going to send you a video, not sheep and quince but sheep and figs and me 🙈so perhaps you may begin your day with a smile too. All love and hugs from one worried but resilient soul to another.. 🙏🏼🐏🌿xx
I also loved this part: “a simple about-turn to retrace my steps to the uncomplicated bohemian lifestyle I came here for, except not only have I lost the map—if I ever even had one—but time is slipping like water through my fingers at a terrifying rate”. I'm not sure any lifestyle can truly be uncomplicated. And it sounds like this job is giving you a lot on your plate...
Betty I agree, no matter which road we choose there are complications, lifestyle does little to change that but I do think we are capable of alleviating the chaos by slowing down a little — if possible of course, and I think this is the ultimate problem… few of us, because I know I am not alone, find the right balance for whatever reason, family/finances to even try. Life is a heavy load, it shouldn’t be but we’ve made it that way - guilty as charged… as for the job, I am not alone when I say, every year is harder and that has nothing to do with age!
Thank you again, I haven’t seen so many acorns this year, but I read in The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben that there is an order to which tree produces and when, it isn’t every tree every year, they receive instructions from the matriarch. Isn’t that amazing! Your towpath must have been given the GO sign this year! Do you collect them for anything?
I don't collect acorns, I'm not sure where I'd keep them on the boat. But conkers, yes. Not only for having a conker fight with a friend, but because they are supposed to discourage spiders from taking up residence. Needless to say, my boat spiders seem to be immune.
I collect everything possible that can be stored and ground and dried and pickled Sarah, there is such an abundance of chestnuts, walnuts and hazelnuts on the hill — plenty for us and the animals — acorns no though… in the past I made an acorn coffee but it really is a vile and bitter tasting drink so I leave them for the wildlife…
Oh Susie, I want to osmose your sentences into my soul, to drink in your words like a leaf drinks sunlight. They lift me up in hope and I sail on their gentle currents into dreams where your hare is running amidst the clouds in an oyster sky - perhaps called by the Black Rabbit of Inlé, his woodland screams a fading memory…. I too have missed the swallows gathering, the weather here went from warm to chill in the space of a day or two, and we are now cloaked in autumn and all she brings. But in the shortening days, I get to walk at dusk again, my favourite time of day, while the bats swoop and dart over my head along the lane and around the ancient yew across the field, where I can also glimpse in the distance, a family of foxes playing in the fading light. May the workdays pass quickly and the holidays at glacial pace, much love 🍂🍁
I am picturing your foxes at play Emily, and the ancient yew, a tree noticeably absent here and one I love for the myths and sacred beliefs surrounding it. My husband asks constantly for me to keep an eye open for one as the timber is apparently the very best for making bows for archery not that I would tell him if I did! The thought of him sawing off limbs is too sad to contemplate!
I too love walking at dusk, yet more at dawn though, this is the time when human occupants of the hill are only just stirring and the animals are on their way to slumber, the time when I can feel the silence yet have the joy of seeing so many of the secrets held within. It is a privilege I rarely hold making the moments I do yet more precious.
I believe you are right about my hare lovely, tonight I looked up at the clouds and saw a streak of blue grey that could have been his shadow, behind were the first of the evening stars and a waxing gibbous moon just rising above the barn roof... perhaps the Black Rabbit of Inlé was close behind? Maybe he had more luck enticing my hare than he did Hazel...
One day and two weeks to holidays... I am counting backwards now!
I remember that Hazel went willingly in the end, and I believe that our heartbreak at the turning of the world speaks volumes to our purpose as humans - that of guardianship and stewards of this beautiful planet and life upon it. Those who are filled with anger and hatred are so, because they have been severed from that purpose. Love and hugs - may the days pass swiftly until the holidays 😘💛
I believe you are right Emily, on all counts and if I were Hazel I too would go willingly now… we have lost sight of guardianship, the true meaning is not owning of course, its caring and I believe this to be the root of all anger and hatred. I fear there is much to learn in between those two words before our feet fall upon the right road again too… 😔
“a simple about-turn to retrace my steps to the uncomplicated bohemian lifestyle I came here for, except not only have I lost the map—if I ever even had one—but time is slipping like water through my fingers at a terrifying rate”
I know that feeling so well, Susie.
As I follow your tear brimmed eyes across the sunset, I imagine walnut shells crunching under my feet.
August and its burning heat (quite literally) not long behind us but almost forgotten.
I watch walnuts ripening and dropping from trees on the lands of neighbours and friends and wonder what I would do with them. Having spent along stretches of September processing figs, apples, pears, nachi pears, plums, golden gages and grapes, I imagine it would be a lot of work… and still, the nutty obstacle course triggers a little twinge of envy.
Dearest Veronika, I was thinking of you and a few others who have made the same move towards a dream when I wrote that line. For me the dream still floats out there somewhere, sometimes it is tangible, even touching something beyond which has enhanced the vision even more strongly but then there are all the hard long days in between aren't there? The days when we are living a nightmare consisting of seemingly endless hard physical work when age is against us.
But we are here, and beyond the hardships there is much, so much, to be thankful for worth holding tight to. 💚
My advice re the walnuts; gather a few, enough for salads and nibbles through the winter, maybe a 'tarte aux noix'or two but unless your back and fingers are feeling able for the utter pain involved in the gathering and shelling enough for oil, I suggest leaving that to the artisans who have the right equipment. You've done enough already!
We have twenty trees on our land, we make our own oil, I dread it, every year. 😰
This year I think I may just take my own advice... 🙏🏼 xx
We've harvested olives every year ever since we came here and have always had our own olive oil (pressed in a local mill, not by ourselves). Hard work too, but we've always managed to gather a crew of friends and/or family to help with the harvest to make it as much fun as possible (will do the same again end of this month, but this time on a friends' land, no longer our own).
We also had friends here who had their own walnuts, picked and sorted every nut and then offered them for sale on local markets. So much work! for so little cash... they moved to the Algarve a couple of years ago. I'm guessing they now celebrate every walnut season in the knowledge that they are liberated from the chore.
"The days when we are living a nightmare consisting of seemingly endless hard physical work when age is against us." — why are we doing this to ourselves???!!
I can imagine the hard work involved in collecting olives Veronika! We have just one tree, usually with only a handful of fruit on at the end of the season because we didn’t really think it would ever have any and we chose badly its positioning but the one year when it was laden, I cursed loudly while trying to gather them all and then yet more when I researched just how much work was needed to make oil… once was enough! I buy my olive oil in cans from another friend who comes from Portugal twice a year, its so much less painful!
Did I say to you I would be leaving the nuts for the squirrels and birds? Did I say I would be taking my own good advice…? What a pity I didn’t listen… I have already begun the back breaking task of collecting — because there are so many, enough for us and the animals — given a bucket load to a friend and am now wondering where to store them for drying because normally they aren’t shelled until after two months drying in racks in the wind and there just isn’t space anywhere that is vermin free…
Like you say, “why do we torture ourselves so?”
I hope the week is kind to you, we are still basking in a beautiful Indian summer, long may it last..; xx
Now I am concerned... you are the second to believe Hare is still living... I think I must be writing Chinese, need to make myself clearer obviously, maybe take Bruce Willis' line from Pulp Fiction, 'Zed's dead babe, Zed's dead!'
Thanks for reading Jonathan, wishing beautiful autumnal wanderings.
Oh Nooooo, damn, sorry Susie. I think I must have been projecting my desire there. I love hares and I wanted him to be alive so I read it that way. You're definitely making perfect and gorgeously written sense, this is on me for sure 🙄
You are very kind Ben, thank you for taking the time to read through my seasonal ramblings. I hope autumn will be a little less brutal than summer was, in terms of temperature and time!
Your light, curving softly around the subjects of your photography and words, illuminates my heart, and so many others. Just stunning. I find myself falling into a hushed silence after reading this, like the quiet of birdsong setting under an autumn horizon. 🙏
Autumn is settling on the hill day by day now, everything changing, colour returning, always there is something yet more illuminating than the day before to wrap up our hearts ready for winter... Bless you dear Kimberly, I am thinking of you making your book tour with so much love xx
So lyrically beautiful that you took my breath away with the line "I want to tell you how I waited and watched every telegraph line for the swallows to line up in readiness for their great and courageous journey southwards but not one alighted. Yet, they are gone." -- and couldn't stop breathing until you closed this essay with finding one's way!
Your collection of essays is looking more and more like a book where they all will be collected.
And then I discover the mention of my small project: how generous from afar you are Susie. Heart to heart 💝
Mary you are kindness personified... heart to heart indeed 💞if only I had the time to collate all these vignettes and images perhaps a book might transpire... perhaps!?
It has long been a dream but the reality is beyond my reach when my days are already so taken up. A retirement project maybe...
It means so much that you should even suggest it - Thank you xx
September feels so long -- and after a long August too! There is so much wonder here, but that need to slow -- to carve time differently -- it grows. xxx
It is the strangest feeling for me Jan, but this year I am longing for winter. I think I have been stuck in top gear for too long, I need the long evenings when I don't feel obliged to be moving. I have not been kind to myself this year, not that the choice has been presented, it's really beginning to show. So absolutely yes to carving time differently!
I also feel days and life are passing too quickly, yet here we are at the end of September... already. Autumn is my favourite season, one that I cling to each day as I watch gorgeous coloured leaves fall away. I feel the beginning of winter's chill and I don't like it. Love your gorgeous sunset, they hold Autumn's beautiful colours. I pray you are able to slow down, embrace your mind, body and soul in God's light and love. XXOO
You know darling, I am looking forward to winter this year, dark evenings and short days that don't demand anything of me feel so necessary right now. I've a few weeks to go yet though!
But yes, gorgeous golden autumn first... I can't wait for the next holidays! I dont even remember the last time I walked in the beech forest? Probably last autumn!
Sending love and light from these hands beautiful! 🍂xxx
What beauty in the words you weave Susie. To succumb to Autumn's ways, bowing us toward Winter. The ebb and flow of nature, the invisible hands we've disconnected from. But not you, definitely not you Susie.
Waking everyone who reads you, with every word you write.
Dear Síodhna I have still some distance to travel but I try to flow with the seasons in all their beauty and hardships. It becomes more apparent with every year I gain the importance of a connection even if only by taking small steps and sharing those I make. As a race, bit by bit, it becomes more apparent we are losing the ability to bow to the seasons, to know the beauty and magic each holds, and there is so much of importance hidden within them... You see it, and feel it, I know you know!
Thank you so much for being here to read and comment, may your week be wrapped in seasonal glowing. xx
I believe small noticing to be the life source we need for peaceful continuation Síodhna, without them and without sharing them in any way, big or small, we will cease to be. Thank you always xx
Bonjour Susie! I had been visiting a friend in the south of France since the middle of September, and have just returned home and so have missed reading your lovely stories on Substack.
It seems only yesterday that you wrote 'Of Hope', and now here we are almost mid October, the 'lush green meadows' in France have mostly turned into golden tarp-covered ones, and though these past three weeks have been very warm (hot even), 'Le Mistral' winds seemed to have started blowing two days before my departure. It left me feeling quite sad for the changing season, and changing times.
I hope your school year is a good one, and that you are able , once in awhile, to say a polite 'non, je ne peut pas' to a few 'wonderful ideas' and 'projects'. If only to let you take time for self indulgences (like walking in the forest, reading and writing for your pleasure!).
And, the selfish part of me wants you to have time especially to write: ''I want to tell you how...''
Merci Susie!
Jeannine my most humble apologies for such an unforgivable delay in replying, Somehow I missed your lovely comment entirely and to think you were so close too...
Yes, the season has indeed turned another quarter cycle and autumn is advancing. We were gifted a most beautiful Indian summer right up until the first day of 'les vacances de Toussant and then sadly — or gladly depending on ones plans — dear MN decided it was time to replenish the rivers and streams, the skies turned grey, then black, and then opened. As I type rain is falling in torrents... it is needed but not loved!
This new year in classes has been complicated — an understatement, read that as a little slice of Hell — every class has its difficulties which to date we, as a team who work very much in harmony with each other, have found no solutions to. Our hands are tied in so many possible knots we are struggling to see tan untangled line to take. We are counting on our instincts being the only way forward, time will tell.
Needless to say I have had little time for walking, much less writing but have a mountain of notes ready for those days ahead which will see me confined (unwillingly of course!) to the inside of my home and with a little luck I will begin unravelling their delights tomorrow. Tonight is for catching up... as you can see, I am a little behind.
I wish you a cosy evening dear Jeannine and send you much love with the myriad coloured leaves being picked up by a rather boisterous wind. xx
Pas de soucis, Susie! I understand how the days can flit by faster than we can catch a fluttering autumn leaf! I always appreciate you taking some precious time to send me news.
Oh my, I do hope that things in school work out. So much is changing all over the world and having an impact on many facets of people's lives.
I wish you a quiet time for your 'catching up', and smoother sailing throughout the school year.
Enjoy Fall ! xo
You too Jeannine, autumn is such a magical season, I believe it is designed that way to ease us into the months that follow with a little less trepidation.
Much love to you xox
Susie, I read your note to Katharine; “More and more often I wonder just how many more years I will be able to live on this hill” “…and my woodland and my sheep...all take huge energy which for now I have but for how long ?” Believe me, I know these thoughts, Susie. Not about my home, but my magical camp, where we spend almost three seasons a year,for 18 years. As always, late Autumn will undoubtedly chase us home when the leaves lay crumpling on the forest floor and snow blows across the lake. The frigid wind, invites itself right through the walls to our no longer cozy inside. As I huddle in my down vest, scarf and hat, by the fire place. For the last week, I box up, bag up, cover and carry, and right in the middle of lamenting, for a various reasons, will this be our last season here, will we physically be able to do the hard work that’s needed to own and be stewards of this enchanted place? My sister texted me from Florida, seemly a world away from my remote lake and beloved hills and mountains , telling me; “ Thankfully missed the deer, but hit a mail box surrounded by cinder blocks . She includes five photos of her car with severe damage, an MRI report and a hospital ER record. She is ok, not hospitalized, wearing what looks like armor to stabilize her Lumbar compression fracture that shattered and fragmented towards her spinal canal (retropulsion). She awaits her next appointment to see if she is surgical. (Luckily she understands little of her MRI, report and the severity of her injuries, but we do. Good drugs and ignorance, is bliss). That is to say, today is today , we are thankfully alive in this very moment. Shocked into telling myself, why are you worrying about what may or may not come to pass in the next year. Sometimes it takes ice cold water down our spines to open our eyes and set free the doubts of futures yet to be written. We know this already, but it is a hard reminder. I too, choose to believe the handsome hare with the lovely ears is still running through the fields. “I want to tell you…” That your writing and photographs are stunning. And I wish you would shake your head no once in awhile , “I am sorry, I just don’t have the time “, but your heart is full when you offer yourself up to endless acts of kindness. It is who you are. “… how four eager sheep creep so cleverly beneath low boughs, place one foot to rest on the trunk, then the other and throw back their heads to reach each tart fruit before I or the wind whisk them away.” Thank you for showing me with your words . I love this image! I am off to sleep, counting Quince and sheep.🐑 🐑🐑🐑
Dearest Lor, first, most important, I am so sorry to hear of your sisters accident, I hope what you understand of the MRI report and she doesn't isn't too life changing, that drugs and rest and ignorance with time will heal her. Coincidentally, my sister called me last night, a rare occasion so I knew. She too had an accident, a fall while walking her dog 10 days ago, a fractured tibia but awkwardly just under her knee, she is immobile, was immobile for her daughters wedding, heartbroken and now waiting surgery — the UK medical services are notoriously slow unless a life is threatened. I await news.
YES!! Carpe Diem! Because damn it we just don't know what the next holds in waiting... I cannot imagine being immobile so give thanks at least that I feel young enough in body — even if my face belies the truth — to continue with all the chores and the lifting and carrying and walking... Lordy, no walking, no forests and hills... 😔. I understand deeply the 'but for how long for?' I think perhaps, let's not go there but that's not so easy either, one has to be practical not emotional, also hard and one cannot change the nature of a lifetime, at least not in a day.
I am going to send you a video, not sheep and quince but sheep and figs and me 🙈so perhaps you may begin your day with a smile too. All love and hugs from one worried but resilient soul to another.. 🙏🏼🐏🌿xx
I want to tell you that I've missed your words -- always a balm to my heart.
Perhaps the balm is more effective for the missing dear Fotini, either way thank you xx
🖤🖤🖤
Thank you for the sweet balm of your words.
You are so very welcome Sequoia, to use as a balm is exactly the reason I write them.. 💛
I also loved this part: “a simple about-turn to retrace my steps to the uncomplicated bohemian lifestyle I came here for, except not only have I lost the map—if I ever even had one—but time is slipping like water through my fingers at a terrifying rate”. I'm not sure any lifestyle can truly be uncomplicated. And it sounds like this job is giving you a lot on your plate...
Betty I agree, no matter which road we choose there are complications, lifestyle does little to change that but I do think we are capable of alleviating the chaos by slowing down a little — if possible of course, and I think this is the ultimate problem… few of us, because I know I am not alone, find the right balance for whatever reason, family/finances to even try. Life is a heavy load, it shouldn’t be but we’ve made it that way - guilty as charged… as for the job, I am not alone when I say, every year is harder and that has nothing to do with age!
Beautiful words. Here on the autumn towpath where my boat is moored, my feet crunch on acorns.
Thank you again, I haven’t seen so many acorns this year, but I read in The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben that there is an order to which tree produces and when, it isn’t every tree every year, they receive instructions from the matriarch. Isn’t that amazing! Your towpath must have been given the GO sign this year! Do you collect them for anything?
I don't collect acorns, I'm not sure where I'd keep them on the boat. But conkers, yes. Not only for having a conker fight with a friend, but because they are supposed to discourage spiders from taking up residence. Needless to say, my boat spiders seem to be immune.
What do you collect?
I collect everything possible that can be stored and ground and dried and pickled Sarah, there is such an abundance of chestnuts, walnuts and hazelnuts on the hill — plenty for us and the animals — acorns no though… in the past I made an acorn coffee but it really is a vile and bitter tasting drink so I leave them for the wildlife…
Oh Susie, I want to osmose your sentences into my soul, to drink in your words like a leaf drinks sunlight. They lift me up in hope and I sail on their gentle currents into dreams where your hare is running amidst the clouds in an oyster sky - perhaps called by the Black Rabbit of Inlé, his woodland screams a fading memory…. I too have missed the swallows gathering, the weather here went from warm to chill in the space of a day or two, and we are now cloaked in autumn and all she brings. But in the shortening days, I get to walk at dusk again, my favourite time of day, while the bats swoop and dart over my head along the lane and around the ancient yew across the field, where I can also glimpse in the distance, a family of foxes playing in the fading light. May the workdays pass quickly and the holidays at glacial pace, much love 🍂🍁
I am picturing your foxes at play Emily, and the ancient yew, a tree noticeably absent here and one I love for the myths and sacred beliefs surrounding it. My husband asks constantly for me to keep an eye open for one as the timber is apparently the very best for making bows for archery not that I would tell him if I did! The thought of him sawing off limbs is too sad to contemplate!
I too love walking at dusk, yet more at dawn though, this is the time when human occupants of the hill are only just stirring and the animals are on their way to slumber, the time when I can feel the silence yet have the joy of seeing so many of the secrets held within. It is a privilege I rarely hold making the moments I do yet more precious.
I believe you are right about my hare lovely, tonight I looked up at the clouds and saw a streak of blue grey that could have been his shadow, behind were the first of the evening stars and a waxing gibbous moon just rising above the barn roof... perhaps the Black Rabbit of Inlé was close behind? Maybe he had more luck enticing my hare than he did Hazel...
One day and two weeks to holidays... I am counting backwards now!
Much love sweet soul, with love and a hug 💛🍂xx
I remember that Hazel went willingly in the end, and I believe that our heartbreak at the turning of the world speaks volumes to our purpose as humans - that of guardianship and stewards of this beautiful planet and life upon it. Those who are filled with anger and hatred are so, because they have been severed from that purpose. Love and hugs - may the days pass swiftly until the holidays 😘💛
I believe you are right Emily, on all counts and if I were Hazel I too would go willingly now… we have lost sight of guardianship, the true meaning is not owning of course, its caring and I believe this to be the root of all anger and hatred. I fear there is much to learn in between those two words before our feet fall upon the right road again too… 😔
Love back with hugs and hope always lovely ♥️x
“a simple about-turn to retrace my steps to the uncomplicated bohemian lifestyle I came here for, except not only have I lost the map—if I ever even had one—but time is slipping like water through my fingers at a terrifying rate”
I know that feeling so well, Susie.
As I follow your tear brimmed eyes across the sunset, I imagine walnut shells crunching under my feet.
August and its burning heat (quite literally) not long behind us but almost forgotten.
I watch walnuts ripening and dropping from trees on the lands of neighbours and friends and wonder what I would do with them. Having spent along stretches of September processing figs, apples, pears, nachi pears, plums, golden gages and grapes, I imagine it would be a lot of work… and still, the nutty obstacle course triggers a little twinge of envy.
Enjoy the walnuts and the sunsets 💗 🍂 🍁 🌕
Dearest Veronika, I was thinking of you and a few others who have made the same move towards a dream when I wrote that line. For me the dream still floats out there somewhere, sometimes it is tangible, even touching something beyond which has enhanced the vision even more strongly but then there are all the hard long days in between aren't there? The days when we are living a nightmare consisting of seemingly endless hard physical work when age is against us.
But we are here, and beyond the hardships there is much, so much, to be thankful for worth holding tight to. 💚
My advice re the walnuts; gather a few, enough for salads and nibbles through the winter, maybe a 'tarte aux noix'or two but unless your back and fingers are feeling able for the utter pain involved in the gathering and shelling enough for oil, I suggest leaving that to the artisans who have the right equipment. You've done enough already!
We have twenty trees on our land, we make our own oil, I dread it, every year. 😰
This year I think I may just take my own advice... 🙏🏼 xx
Oh wow! you make your own walnut oil?!
We've harvested olives every year ever since we came here and have always had our own olive oil (pressed in a local mill, not by ourselves). Hard work too, but we've always managed to gather a crew of friends and/or family to help with the harvest to make it as much fun as possible (will do the same again end of this month, but this time on a friends' land, no longer our own).
We also had friends here who had their own walnuts, picked and sorted every nut and then offered them for sale on local markets. So much work! for so little cash... they moved to the Algarve a couple of years ago. I'm guessing they now celebrate every walnut season in the knowledge that they are liberated from the chore.
"The days when we are living a nightmare consisting of seemingly endless hard physical work when age is against us." — why are we doing this to ourselves???!!
I can imagine the hard work involved in collecting olives Veronika! We have just one tree, usually with only a handful of fruit on at the end of the season because we didn’t really think it would ever have any and we chose badly its positioning but the one year when it was laden, I cursed loudly while trying to gather them all and then yet more when I researched just how much work was needed to make oil… once was enough! I buy my olive oil in cans from another friend who comes from Portugal twice a year, its so much less painful!
Did I say to you I would be leaving the nuts for the squirrels and birds? Did I say I would be taking my own good advice…? What a pity I didn’t listen… I have already begun the back breaking task of collecting — because there are so many, enough for us and the animals — given a bucket load to a friend and am now wondering where to store them for drying because normally they aren’t shelled until after two months drying in racks in the wind and there just isn’t space anywhere that is vermin free…
Like you say, “why do we torture ourselves so?”
I hope the week is kind to you, we are still basking in a beautiful Indian summer, long may it last..; xx
Beautiful. Hurrah for the hare too :)
Now I am concerned... you are the second to believe Hare is still living... I think I must be writing Chinese, need to make myself clearer obviously, maybe take Bruce Willis' line from Pulp Fiction, 'Zed's dead babe, Zed's dead!'
Thanks for reading Jonathan, wishing beautiful autumnal wanderings.
Snort. Then guffaw.
Zed's dead, babe, Zed's dead.
You're still funny.
Well now I'm smiling too Davey, you gotta right? Smile in the face of adversity!
Actually, I have a feeling the line was "Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead!" Close enough though...
A good day to you my dear friend.
that's the way I read it too, delighting in the return of Hare... 😰
Oh no! I really must check I am making good sense in future… I am so sorry Veronika. 🙏🏼
no worries, we all read what we want to read, so I take full responsibility for my erroneous interpretation.
Oh Nooooo, damn, sorry Susie. I think I must have been projecting my desire there. I love hares and I wanted him to be alive so I read it that way. You're definitely making perfect and gorgeously written sense, this is on me for sure 🙄
The way I worded the sentence was a little arse-about-face now I read it again... Absolutely no apologies necessary, I wanted him to be alive too. 😔
I count on you to be reminded of the changing of seasons these days and you never once disappoint.
You are very kind Ben, thank you for taking the time to read through my seasonal ramblings. I hope autumn will be a little less brutal than summer was, in terms of temperature and time!
Your light, curving softly around the subjects of your photography and words, illuminates my heart, and so many others. Just stunning. I find myself falling into a hushed silence after reading this, like the quiet of birdsong setting under an autumn horizon. 🙏
Autumn is settling on the hill day by day now, everything changing, colour returning, always there is something yet more illuminating than the day before to wrap up our hearts ready for winter... Bless you dear Kimberly, I am thinking of you making your book tour with so much love xx
So lyrically beautiful that you took my breath away with the line "I want to tell you how I waited and watched every telegraph line for the swallows to line up in readiness for their great and courageous journey southwards but not one alighted. Yet, they are gone." -- and couldn't stop breathing until you closed this essay with finding one's way!
Your collection of essays is looking more and more like a book where they all will be collected.
And then I discover the mention of my small project: how generous from afar you are Susie. Heart to heart 💝
Mary you are kindness personified... heart to heart indeed 💞if only I had the time to collate all these vignettes and images perhaps a book might transpire... perhaps!?
It has long been a dream but the reality is beyond my reach when my days are already so taken up. A retirement project maybe...
It means so much that you should even suggest it - Thank you xx
September feels so long -- and after a long August too! There is so much wonder here, but that need to slow -- to carve time differently -- it grows. xxx
It is the strangest feeling for me Jan, but this year I am longing for winter. I think I have been stuck in top gear for too long, I need the long evenings when I don't feel obliged to be moving. I have not been kind to myself this year, not that the choice has been presented, it's really beginning to show. So absolutely yes to carving time differently!
Thank you lovely, always xx
Me too on wintering -- I'm hatching a plan for a big chunk of hibernation. Let's winter together with some herbs :) xx
Hibernating with herbs together - That sounds like a truly beautiful and heartwarming plan Jan xox
I also feel days and life are passing too quickly, yet here we are at the end of September... already. Autumn is my favourite season, one that I cling to each day as I watch gorgeous coloured leaves fall away. I feel the beginning of winter's chill and I don't like it. Love your gorgeous sunset, they hold Autumn's beautiful colours. I pray you are able to slow down, embrace your mind, body and soul in God's light and love. XXOO
You know darling, I am looking forward to winter this year, dark evenings and short days that don't demand anything of me feel so necessary right now. I've a few weeks to go yet though!
But yes, gorgeous golden autumn first... I can't wait for the next holidays! I dont even remember the last time I walked in the beech forest? Probably last autumn!
Sending love and light from these hands beautiful! 🍂xxx
What beauty in the words you weave Susie. To succumb to Autumn's ways, bowing us toward Winter. The ebb and flow of nature, the invisible hands we've disconnected from. But not you, definitely not you Susie.
Waking everyone who reads you, with every word you write.
Dear Síodhna I have still some distance to travel but I try to flow with the seasons in all their beauty and hardships. It becomes more apparent with every year I gain the importance of a connection even if only by taking small steps and sharing those I make. As a race, bit by bit, it becomes more apparent we are losing the ability to bow to the seasons, to know the beauty and magic each holds, and there is so much of importance hidden within them... You see it, and feel it, I know you know!
Thank you so much for being here to read and comment, may your week be wrapped in seasonal glowing. xx
As a race ⚡‘keeping the climb‘ as another poet said recently
The small noticings are life itself. The gift of noticing, the second light; the ability to capture it
I believe small noticing to be the life source we need for peaceful continuation Síodhna, without them and without sharing them in any way, big or small, we will cease to be. Thank you always xx
I love to read your observations, Susie, and your photos are gorgeous as ever!
Thank you sweetie 🤎🍂