Fat, feline domesticity

God, I love Autumn, it’s such a fecund time. I know that seems wrong, as it’s Spring and Summer which are supposedly the productive areas of the year, but really, Autumn beats them. It’s the time of final fruition, of produce safely gathered in, and it’s the time to take stock in the garden and to plan the riot of blooms for the year ahead.

I’m lucky enough to be employed on a sorta ‘works for food’ basis by some friends who have asked me to get their garden in order… they pay for plants and I’m very happy to work giving my time for free on the weekend, as they keep me topped up with tea and lovely food. They have a perfect garden, suffering only from some season’s worth of neglect but it’s slowly coming into line. By the end of the process, every corner of their plot will have interest and something new to look at as the seasons change.

And all this, of course, gives me new appetite for my own sadly neglected garden. Dave the Tree is coming over this weekend to put in two days hard graft rooting out trees and shrubs, and one totally vicious rose that bites me whenever I try and attack it (I think it’s left over from the ones round Sleeping Beauty’s Castle). I will clear the weeds and the crud and when we’re back to a blank canvas I will mulch, then meditate awhile over the way I want things to be. Who needs Second Life when you can actually mould the world like this in your first one?

And the fecundity goes further, because this is the time to relegate the light, Summery suppers of pasta and rice, of salad and grilled meat and fish to the bottom of the rankings and bring forward the hearty soups, the simmering stews, the roasts and braises with the substance and rib-sticking heat to cheer you to bed with warm fingers and toes and a full tummy.

Baking, and the making of puddings, looms large now. The house is warm and fragrant and welcoming, like houses should be, and the heaped pumpkins and squashes light our way forward into the darkening year, towards Hallowe’en.

Waxing lyrical, perhaps, but this is truly, truly my favourite time of the year.