The Second Spring
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” - Albert Camus
I'll say it, I'm not ready for Christmas yet. I love Christmas, the lights and the greenery and the stollen, but I'll not wish away my favourite month. November is when Autumn arrives, the trees put on their reds and golds and the garden becomes architectural with seed heads and rosehips.
I see how tempting it is if you've decorated for Halloween to strip it all down now October is gone and dig the sparkly boxes out of the loft, but this year I'm far more interested in the folklore and celebration of the gathering dark that is the Irish festival of Samhain, and this month I'll be bringing the outside in to celebrate this second spring.
Some of my favourite things to do:
- cut herbs from the garden, tie them in bundles and hang them in the kitchen to dry. As the kitchen gets warm when you're cooking, the oils release and you get wonderful warm smells of sage and rosemary;
- vases full of seed heads. Poppies are one of my favourite, as well as the catherine-wheel heads of Clematis and the spikes of Nigella and Teasles;
- wound wreaths of rosehips. Take your secateurs next time you go on a walk and snip a few branches of dog rose. Tangled together they make a perfect autumnal wreath;
- eat seasonally. Now is the time for apple pies and root vegetable soups, cinnamon buns and warming risottos. I bought a strawberry tart on impulse yesterday and it tasted of nothing, unsurprisingly given how we're probably the furthest from strawberry season. I've just signed up to the Riverford fruit and veg box in an effort to eat more naturally;
- prepare the house for hibernation. Sadly I doubt any of us are able to actually hibernate what with work and school, but we can pretend. Now is the time for layers, sheepskins and blankets, velvets and wools. I light candles constantly and nobody approaches the Big Light switch for fear of being tackled to the ground.
So if you love Christmas, do what makes you happy, I love to see it, but if you're not quite there yet, there's so much we can do to feel autumnally festive.
