Autumn equinox

'For now, light and dark hang perilously poised, each balancing the other. After tomorrow, the shadows begin to cluster ever thicker about the dark scale, taking us with it down to the dark boreal night, the winter solstice. It is the dramatic behaviour of light and darkness that is perennially fascinating in the north.'

(George Mackay Brown, 'Under Brinkie's Brae')

According to my diary, today is the first day of autumn. It's always been my favourite season, when we used to play games as small children, I was always the autumn fairy :) There's a nip in the air, the sun's lower in the sky, the nights are drawing in. There's so much colour.

The garden's starting to die down a little, or at least there's not the riotous growth of a few weeks ago. The rocket on the windowsill is going strong (and needs repotting, I'll add that to the list). It'll have to stay inside over the winter I think - I timed it so badly, but the seeds I sowed outside didn't germinate, and I so much wanted to grow rocket, and then the hardware shop was selling seeds half price and I couldn't resist... So we might be eating indoor-windowsill-rocket for a few months yet.

We haven't exactly had a bounteous harvest from our tiny garden, I've been concentrating too much on writing to put as much time as I'd like into weeding and sowing and watering. But I picked a bit of perpetual spinach for tea, and some fennel and basil (which is inside) for flavour. And very nice it was too :)

No ideas for the wedding gift yet...