Wonderful Wednesday #36
A weekly post to count the small joys and littler things I'm grateful for each week.
It’s the light that gives autumn away, sets it apart from the rest and from what has gone before and what surely comes next. Softer, lingering, dilly-dallying and dancing: sneaking through cracks, crevices, new-found spots and all-of-sudden-gaps where there wasn’t, only maybe-days earlier. It’s arrival isn’t showy or loud.
Gently taking its time no matter the time of day. There is less of it— less because the days are fast-shortening and the nights are nudging on in and i admire its confidence because of just that. It fills up the gaps it can find, nothing more and nothing less:
Just enough.
It’s rusty glow lights up the edges of leaves just beginning to curl and crisp, the rest of it pushing on through the gaps where the very first have begun a soft and whispering descent to the floor below. The days seem to slow as much as they’re gone all of a sudden at the same time: a paradoxical limbo of night and day, light and dark and the sweet-spot where one season hasn’t quite fully become the next even if all of its pieces are falling gently into place anyway.
The past handful or so of days have been endlessly wet, then a little frosty and wait— dewy-morning-ed too. At last and most recently though: Milder and less autumn, feeling. If i feel a little seasonally confused i need only look and be grateful for the first-fallen leaves around me and undeniably ‘very much more autumn than summer’ chill first and last thing each day.
If this is summer’s last hurrah then this is autumn reminding her that it’s very nearly her turn.
In amongst the two-ing and fro-ing, warm and cold and bright and relentlessly wet, wet, wet and a week that feels almost twice as long already because of it; there have of course been small joys and little moments to be grateful for.
Here are some highlights:
1 Baked potatoes. Eaten two nights in a row with no shame whatsoever. Two nights heavy with torrential rain so even more justifiable in terms of nourishment and of comfort in equal amounts. Both piled high with the same filling each night: a jumble of flaked tuna in olive oil, toasted sesame seeds, a small handful of chickpeas, grated lemon zest, mashed avocado, the last of the dill (before we give way to rosemary and sage etc etc) and a great big heap of sauerkraut. A sort of end of summer meets early autumn ‘two nights in a row it was that good and i am that lazy’ sort of a supper which was just what i wanted, twice.
2 Sunrise. Another marker that autumn is pushing on in: My alarm time remains the same but all of a sudden it seems my eyes are not met with bright sunlight or, any sort of a light these days but the very end of the day before and the very beginnings of the next. It’s quite glorious making hot tea as the sun comes up though. I do love mornings.
3 Dark chocolate buttons, fresh figs and walnuts: My current snack of choice on long-feeling afternoons where tea alone just doesn’t cut it (ie: most of them!).
4 First geese. Not spotted as yet (i blame the still quite leafy woodland canopy) but their undeniable honk, honk, honking heard twice now on our early morning pup walk. Are they early or is autumn a little late and is summer really hanging on still?
5 A couple of new woollen neckerchiefs which, i do believe i shared last week but i’m sharing again because this ‘is it autumn is it summer'?’ mid-September climate has had me wearing one on each cycle to work each day and i do declare them fully road-or-is-it-bike tested: Perfect for keeping the foggy-morning chill off and easy to roll up and pop into my bag for the cycle home when the sun has finally decided to join us and the extra layer isn’t needed anymore.
What little things, otherwise forgotten joys and memorable moments are you grateful for this week? I’d so love for you to share. Thank you so very much for dropping on by and spending a precious few moments of your time here, i’ll never take it for granted i promise.
As always, this weeks audio will go up in and around the rest of my Wednesday and i’ll be sure to shout once it lands. Have lovely rest of week, wherever you are!