When The Hurly Burly's Done

Photograph by Jo Sinclair

There are still a few blackberries left to gather, though I'm pushing it. Folklore warns us to get them 'before the devil spits on them', before the first frost. St Michaelmas day (29 September) they say, to err on the side of caution.

No frost yet, but I found strange fruit in the woods again. I identified it as creolophus cirrhatus, possibly. It's a fungus that looks as though it's been touched with hoar frost. Fungi are still daubed around the woods and fields in all their weird forms - balls, scabs, nipples, dog sick, wax, ice crystals, jelly and vulcanised rubber. It sounds like a real witch's brew. I've seen a fascinating slime mould that looks as though a dog has sicked up sawdust. It is prosaically named dog's vomit fungus. Puff-balls the size and appearance of old hollowed out wasp-eaten rotten crab apples emit dry puffs of spores from a mouth-like hole. Vascellum pratense, that one's labelled.

Gossamer spider threads ensnare me on my walks. I try to peel off the annoying strong-as-steel silk I've walked into. They are only visible in a certain light. Then the entire landscape is alive with them lancing and dancing at the same angle as the grasses that tether them, blowing in the wind.

I've left behind the Miss Havisham look for the glittering hurly burly of Guy Fawkes night. I imagine a time might come when domestic fireworks are banned. The cannon fire echo is a torment for dogs, horses, farm animals and roosting birds. I don't suppose war veterans are too keen either. It goes on for weeks.

Lifestyle magazines keep advising me that a 'pop of colour' is the thing. Blusher, bomber jacket or scatter cushion, pop is what I need. I want I want I want a Eunonymus europaeus for my garden. I remember the first time I noticed one of these spindle trees. I gazed in awe at the bubblegum-pink berries against a perfectly blue autumn sky. Orange fruit bursting out split the pink gorgeously in the most engorged, gorgeous, vivid way. Pop indeed.

Photograph by Jo Sinclair