Light is ebbing – I remember two months ago at eleven o’clock with candles just lit for the summer solstice.

Since I last wrote light is ebbing even more. It’s now getting dark at 8.30pm. We’ve had what we think of as a disappointing summer. Very wet and weather a bit unpredictable. I must admit that hasn’t got me down too much. Sometimes it’s nice to allow yourself to enjoy being in the rain. We’ve had spectacular thunder storms will brilliant lightening and not so brilliant massive hailstones that damaged cars! Thankfully not mine – didn’t need to. I drove mine into a pillar in a car park back in May so had accomplished that all by myself. Although all that’s fixed at some cost now.

I’ve been back up home to the north east. As I drove the sun started to set but the further North I got I was reminded of a thought and little saying I made up as a teenager about Durham where I grew up:

“It always seems to me that here the sun kissed the earth, the rays reach right to the ground. And crown the hills in blazing glory”

Anyway the sun was setting behind beautifully steel or perhaps gunmetal coloured clouds and had graced their edges with a warm apricot hue. Pretty. Spent some time with family in a beautiful place in Durham – was taken to a hill from which you could see miles and miles around. The day was cold but I wouldn’t have missed this view for the world – stunning.

The other thing which was so beautiful for the senses was the heather on the moors, both in Durham and in Yorkshire – blooming in brilliant magenta! You can see it on the hills surrounding the valley where I live, high up on Ilkley Moor. From this far away the magenta hue is softened to a pink wash across the olive green of the moor. I bought some honey that bees have made from the heather – season is brief and the taste sensational – it tastes like sweet-peas smell.I don’t have any photos of the heather at the moment – but I have pictures in my mind that I can look at when I need to and a picture of similar green landscape in Yorkshire.

Apart from the rain we have had some real diamond days too – with blue skies and fair weather cloud. Brilliantly crystal clear light, highlighting the lucid vibrancy of life.

I have spent more times with Holly which have been lovely as always. I’ve been a bit more distant and sought my own company – but then I always have times like that in my life no matter what my relationships are. It mirrors the ebbs and flow of life I suppose. What one day may be a small calm stream, might turn into a crescendo of a waterfall the next. Holly still brings a lot of tenderness and respect. Sometimes gifts – the meaning of which is much appreciated. I’ve had scarlet petals scattered around me by my lover and also by nature when the wind shook some poppy petals around my feet at a big Garden north of here that I visited with a very good friend.

In fact despite the cooler or variable weather this year – I’ve found myself surrounded by a lot of flowers and the last couple of weeks by bees and butterflies. All lovely and interesting to look at, pleasurable to smell (the flowers!)

              

  

So the days are shortening, fruit ripening – I ate my one apple that one of my little grafted apple trees produced. It was delicious and just as I remember the apples from the garden apple tree from the house I grew up in.

      

Things are leaving and there is the passing of one thing to the next. The red berries of early and mid summer are gradually replaced by richer and more mellow toned fruits – apples, plums, pears, blackberries. As I write I’m eating a yellow plum – sweet moist softness accented with a late note of sharpness. Also changes at work – unsettling as we don’t know what to expect in one area also some of the people I work with facing the thing everything alive has to face sooner or later. One in particular faces this with such admirable and restorative grace. Inspirational and sad but I didn’t feel too deeply mournful saying goodbye, because this person appeared to already be at peace with the thought. That’s probably the pinnacle to achieve at the point where we have to say goodbye to life – to look down and say I’m contently happy with that – no matter what you see.

I’ve spent some good time with family and friends. Precious time with my nephew who is just a joy to be with at the moment and we are all eager to meet the new addition to this family and hope for a safe entrance into the world for both involved. Recently I went to visit my youngest sister while the middle one also came too. The journey from here to there is really lovely – some of the things to notice were beautiful olive green dales (how lucky I am to live near here), Highland cows in fields, villages who hold scarecrow festivals earlier in the year and a lovely ornate house at the side of the road that put me in mind of the Hansel and Gretel gingerbread house! Or perhaps the witches house in the Snow Queen (one of my favourite childhood stories) where Gerda is taken in and almost forgets she is on a quest to rescue Kay. The house was surrounded in roses and ornate windowsills.

I also saw a curlew further up on the moor section. What a beautiful, unusual beak.

This weekend I met up with family again. At an agricultural show. Again a wonderful drive through olive green moorland, sheep dotted around the hillsides. I drove past a musical stream running along the valley and parallel to a village called Kettlewell. If I’m right I think this stream is called Kettlewell Beck and runs into the river Wharfe. Now hearing this stream and feeling the late Summer sun on my arms as I drove reminded me of a beautiful memory from long ago.

The memory was of a family trip to the Lake District I think, or maybe it was the Yorkshire Dales – I don’t remember exactly. We were all there. It must have been the early 1990s at some point because I was about 13-14 I think and our lovely Collie dog Glen was with us. He was such a good dog and companion. He died nearly 14 years ago I think, he was just a bit worn out. I never saw him before he was put down to say goodbye so I regret that, but I cherish the memories of him – he used to placidly play the part of Mother Mary at Christmas with a teatowel on his head (some years later I learnt that one of my best friends used to do this to her dog! Wonder how many other dogs had a role in the nativity??). Anyway this particular day was boiling hot. I had shorts and a t-shirt on I think. We stopped near a similar stream for a picnic and us kids ended up in stream with the dog. I remember how deliciously cool the water felt on my feet and calves. Glen was enjoying it too – he loved water and would swim for ages. I moved an old branch that was lying in the water, and out of it swam a large eel. I remember being fascinated and now when I look back I feel lucky to have seen it. A creature which is now fairly critically endangered due to habitat loss, a creature that was born here, migrated to the Sargasso Sea, lived there for years and then when ready to breed had found its way back here. Pretty amazing. Anyway that day is emblazoned onto my memory – what a happy day.

The last couple of weeks have drip fed me an awareness of the lack of swifts. When did they leave? When was the last time I saw them. They are some of my most favourite things from summer – wheeling in delicate kite-like sickles up on high, calling to each other in high pitched tones in the wide blue space. I find they are one of the loveliest things to look at when lying down looking up at the summer sky. But they are some of the earliest migrants to leave, reminding us that summer is not eternal but it is cyclical. So I look forward to their return and hopefully if I’m lucky at least a good few more summers to see them in. It’s funny talking about migrants when Europe is currently in the midst of a ‘migrant crisis’. A crisis caused by unequal distribution of wealth within the world and instability in the middle east largely caused by Western attempts to rearrange a puzzle they don’t understand – what was that saying about putting round pegs in square holes???

Anyway I started worrying that I’d missed the swallows and martens going too – but low and behold today some swifts and young ones were sat on the wires outside my bedroom window – adults were flying off to catch flies and feeding the young ones with them. They were sat with a few young blue tits and a goldfinch – how lovely. Also on my way back from my sister’s recently I looked up from the road to see a swallow swoop down so close to the car. Don’t hit me I thought! But her agility saved her and off she darted, long tail feathers trailing behind her. Just as this swallow left my eye line, a brown leaf fluttered down from a tree by the wayside as if to say she won’t stay long so make the most of the sight! I didn’t see what tree it was however.

On this last day of August I can reflect I’ve had a fulfilling and gentle Summer. I’ve seen strength and content in people where you’d expect weakness and sadness. Reminded again that we can’t have control over everything that happens, but we can have control over how we react to those things, how far we let them encroach on our enjoyment of the here and now. We can’t hold back the darker seasons, but we can try to focus and look forward to the positive parts of them – gradual cooling of weather and need to snuggle and find sources of warmth, the gradual change of greens into golds, reds, oranges, yellows and ambers. Harvest festivals. Halloween and festivals of light. I’m anticipating a good Autumn and a new arrival. Looking forward to again finding and appreciating light in things at a time when there’s a bit more dark around.

As I was driving recently a dandelion seed blew into my car – quick make a wish I thought! I wished for happiness for me, all my family and friends and loved ones. (As it happens I realised that the seeds were in fact thistledown – not dandelion seeds. Soft, airy fairy things that for some reason remind me sharply of Beatrix Potter’s Miss Tittlemouse – I’m sure she may have dined on cherry stones and thistledown – but I may need to read it again to be sure. Some more recently found their way into the room I live in – I thanked them for my wishes and set them free). Then I worried I’d forgotten to wish for good health too – but then another seed blew through my window, slowly past my face and out the other side – just enough time to make that wish!

I wish both of these things for you all. Until next time.