The house martins, flying high in the sky, have formed a huge flock of hundreds of individuals; the nights, lit by a vast moon, ring out to the incessant calls of tawny owls; and even after a cool summer, there is a perceptible nip in the air. The fields throng with newly released pheasants.
Autumn is upon us. After one of the finest years for gardens-the cold winter followed by a warm spring and damp summer we may now be in for one of the most spectacular shows of autumn colours in living memory. Already, the hawthorn bushes are bejewelled with ruby fruits beside the purple sloes of the blackthorn.
We've been busy making apple tarts, jellies and chutneys, but have hardly made a mark on the huge crop still on the trees. The blackbirds feast on the windfalls. When I was a teenager, we would take our apples to a local man who made cider on an ancient press. That process once rather haunted me when I picked up the juice in my father's Volvo, I went round a corner too fast and 20 gallons tipped over the back seat. But now that the trauma has faded with time, we're going to borrow a press this weekend.
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Chelsea Flower Show 2025: What else to do in SW3 if you're coming to the world's greatest flower showThere's more to Chelsea than just the Flower Show so we've rounded up some of the best places to eat, stay and shop.
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Uniquely unique? The Yorkshire grain silos transformed into a home that's a symphony in glass, steel and curvesAmid the beautiful countryside of North Yorkshire, on the edge of the Castle Howard Estate, The Silos is a property for which the word 'house' simply doesn't cut it. And that's not the only way in which it's made us throw out the dictionary.
