Autumnal

It is a beautiful autumn Sunday. Bright sun, impossibly clear blue skies, the leaves beginning to turn, with the earliest of them already lemon yellow, russet, or gold. The morning air carries a bite, the first hints of frost as one steps outside, a slight scent...almost imperceptible. Everything seems to be preparing for winter now. Plants die back, berries burst out...the blackberries in the garden glowing scarlet with a final crop (which will never ripen). The leaves of perennial flowers, crocosmia, gladioli, iris, are yellowing and falling flat. This afternoon I will cut them and clear the beds, cut the grass for the final time this year, put everything away. Odd that so awful a summer should end with such crisp perfection.

At night, one's breath steams in the cool air. Under hidden stars and a fat yellow moon, urban foxes (stupid with youth) haunt the streets. They are this spring's litter. There will be far fewer by the end of winter -and yet I have never seen a dead fox on a London street. Yesterday I picked up the tattered body of a wood pigeon from my lawn, killed by a fox but left almost uneaten... the foxes lay up under the dense shrubs at the end of the garden, the wood pigeons drink from the little pond...and it is no doubt temptation beyond endurance for our vulpine friends. All this only seven miles from the centre of the City. Rus in Urbe.

There are several pints of sloe gin maturing in the kitchen press. It is already a deep pink colour, after only a fortnight. By Christmas, it will be a rich ruby, and ready to drink. I will drain the sloes and dip them in chocolate. The taste of the gin-soaked sloes offsets the sweetness of the chocolate to perfection; delicious and alcoholic in equal measure. The gin will be decanted and a number of small bottles of delight will be passed to favoured friends. The memsahib's friends, obviously: I have none. I take pleasure in drinking the stuff...but to be honest, the greatest pleasure is just in the making of it. In standing by a Warwickshire blackthorn hedge in the sun, spiking one's arms on vicious thorns to get the best sloes. In the strange alchemy of preparation. In the weekly ritual of shaking the kilner jars to stir up the liquor.

It is like jam making: the hours to the picking of wild fruit, or crooning over a large pan of boiling fruit; or sterilising jars...it is engrossing. I have no idea why. I think I have come to favour anything that requires immersion in the momentary activity, be it preserving or fruit picking or gardening or even (yes, I got there in the end) playing the scarlet temptress that is my ukelele...It shuts the intellect up. And frankly, I think that's a Good Thing.

No smart puns? no silly jokes, wandering anecdotes or blethering nonsense? I am afraid not. The world is providing all the stupidity you could possibly want, so I thought I would have the day off, and just let my thoughts wander.

Aimlessly.