Autumn

Autumn blew in over the village and dispatched the last heat of summer.

In our front yard, the leaves of trees have turned blood red. They cling on tenaciously, under an Irish sky that has drizzled for days.

The Hirondelles have long flown south, leaving empty their twilight perch.

All over the yard, mushrooms have sprouted. They appeared quickly, seemingly overnight.

In nacreous-coloured clumps they cluster and hunker in the short grass under the oak.

Others with broader, tobacco-brown seats on longer stems, stand under the fir.

We took some ivory coloured ones to the pharmacy and the pharmacist gave them the thumbs up. We cooked and tested them tentatively, but their taste was bitter. We desisted.

A plague of fruit flies has bred in the rotting plums, figs and apples in orchards and on roadsides across the Lot valley. These tiny devils have been swarming around our back patio and some have managed to infiltrate the house. I am employing, with some success, vinegar traps in the lounge and the kitchen.

The farmer has ploughed his field and it is lying fallow, for the moment.

The temperature inside the house is cooling and I've started to think about firewood.

We will soon be moving from here to the river house, with its huge open fireplace and ancient oak surround.

We will spend the winter there.