October
Autumn is very definitely here although we haven’t got the colours yet, there was quite a gathering of swallows and house martins around Foulsyke a week or so ago, if you enlarge the photo you can just about see them along the top of the window frame. They have now left for sunnier climes and their place has been taken by the geese flying noisily overhead as they sort out their flying positions. At a lower level the hedge cutters are steadily working through the local lanes.
Autumn generally throws a lot of weather at us from beautiful misty mornings to downpours. I went down to Crummock yesterday morning in the rain which didn’t seem to have stopped for a couple of days, a wet changeover on Saturday – not my favourite conditions! The lake and river were high and the path to the bridges was flooded with the water coming almost horizontally over the weirs.
The skies cleared briefly and suddenly it all looked very different.
Earlier this year in the Spring my son Ian gave me one very small pumpkin plant to put in my vegetable patch. I had never tried to grow a pumpkin before and did wonder whether it would be possible here. However this little plant took over my raised bed and then trailed over the wall into the flower border, it also produced four pumpkins! As the forecast was rather wet for this weekend I harvested them during the week and put them on the table outside for a photo to send to Ian.
Then it rained followed by the sun shining again creating a startling bright rainbow over towards Grasmoor and Whiteside but perhaps the pot of gold was to be found on Brackenthwaite Hows.
Hopefully the pumpkins may feature in a later blog as Hallowe’en lanterns.
St Michael and All Angels church at Mosser, otherwise known as the fell church, has not held regular services for many years. The church does not have electricity, it is lit by gaslight and candles. There is still an annual Carol Service which in the past the local tractors in the fields lit by shining their headlights into the church. It was the Saints Day for St Michael last week and this year there was a sung evensong to celebrate this. I had never been into the church as it is normally locked and so it was a good opportunity to go inside and also to experience something of the church’s past. We were even sprinkled with Holy Water!
I have been having a bit of a clear out in the store, old pots of paint, broken electrical equipment, old fluorescent lights etc all of which required a visit to the tip. I don’t think there are many tips which have a view like the one at Frizington towards Ennerdale.
