Chasing the light and embracing the arrival of autumn

As summer slips slowly into autumn the light begins to change. This year, more than ever I feel tuned into the natural environment here on our hilltop. The sun is rising later as I turn the wall calendar page to September. I find myself weather watching, looking for mist in the valley, hoping for a glorious apricot sunset to set the horizon on fire. I want to celebrate the fruit and the flowers, hips and haws, to notice and to document. Bring back the nature table! I am always full of wonder at the magic trick the trees perform…

I am writing field notes, well scribbles really, hurried observations. But, later, when I return to them they seem poetic somehow. “The swifts saw off the magpies again” “The blackberries are almost ripe in Home Field” “The wasps are gorging on the windfalls”.

There is something deeply comforting about the turn of the seasons, this year we have all tuned back into the timeless rhythm of the natural world. All you need is a window and a keen eye. If you are lucky enough to have a garden or access to any outdoor space the changes are there to observe. The trees have lost their spring luminosity, now they are a deeper darker green, their rustle is more paper like. Soon the palette will shift to russet, red, yellow and brown. There are seed heads and pods everywhere, an Autumn banquet for so many of our feathered and furry natives. But for now it is all about the fruit.

A transient moment, but so important. Now is the time to prepare the winter larder. A ramble along the hedgerow should garner rich rewards, blackberries, rosehips and elderberries to boil and sweeten and bottle. Jams, chutneys, cordials and crumbles.

I long to capture all this beauty. I light candles for mood and atmosphere and I can’t help but create still life arrangements. I pick dried flowers and seed heads from the field margins. Group them together simply on a windowsill. I love brown glass at this time of year, I just love how it looks with faded summer colours. These are simply an assortment of beer bottles raided from our recycling bin alongside some old favourites.

Whilst out walking, I notice the first subtle changes in the leaves. I pick the best specimens and hurry back to the cowshed where I tape them to the window. The result is glorious, sun lit silhouettes. Natural stained glass.

Later I head out to the orchard and marvel at the sweet crisp little red apples dangling like ornaments on the trees. The pears are swelling and the medlar are plump too! Sadly no quince this year? It is a mystery, the fruit set but then disappeared overnight in late spring. I pick a basket of apples, some for us and some for the honesty box at the end of the drive.

And now, at last, the light is golden and syrupy. I set up a late tea in the meadow. Earlier, when I was rooting around in the cupboards for a tablecloth, I spotted granny’s lace panel. I suddenly thought of all the umbellifers still peppering the field margins and knew I should use it. Tea is the simplest of seasonal fayre. Freshly baked scones and teacake, a jumbled fruit cordial and a tart blackberry jam all elevated by heirloom lace.

That lace, I can’t bear to put it away again so I hang it and watch the light catch the details. I stay until the last of the light sprinkles shadowy, stitched florals onto the floor. Dusk falls and the moment is gone.

I think tomorrow I will make “jamble” (a preserve made using a mixture, a jumble if you will, of autumn fruits). Or maybe I should dry some apple rings in the aga either way it feels like the moment to begin to prepare for the shortening of days.

words and styling by Sarah Prall
Photography by Georgia Furness