20th October - first frost

Perfect Pears

Stepping outside, the stars still visible above the silent aspens I was struck by the sharp dry cold which betrays a frosty morning. Quickly I walked round the cottage with rising excitement and as I had hoped, across the lane the field lay still and pale bellow dark oaks which loomed in silhouette against the kindling eastern sky. About my feet the dips and divots of the rough lawn were white with crystals and plucking a dandelion leaf I brought it up into the seeping light. Minute daggers of ice bristled about its edges echoing the toothed leaf and I breathed deep as if by doing so I could draw in the moment and keep it somehow. Winter is coming, the range will burn day and night mingling the scent of wood smoke with everything we do, second and even third duvets will be pulled from the cupboards, favourite hats rediscovered and today the season for shooting begins. Shooting season proper began some time back, but for me pursuing game in short sleeves seems inherently wrong and it is only with cold weather that the urge to take up my gun seizes me once more. With child like exuberance I went on to feed the animals calling up the pigs with gleeful tones from their straw bed. Like reluctant adolescents they turned out with grudging demeanours and ruffled coats covered in bedding. Acorns down however they wasted no time tucking into breakfast. As I watched them eat (pigs are horrendous time wasters) the assured cok - cok of a pheasant made me look up. I spotted him under a mature ash, his chest puffed up against the cold, bronze and brilliant in the first rays of sun.

Conference pears which we gathered some weeks ago while still hard, have ripened to sweet perfection. Some years seem better than others and perhaps it was the hot September which has made their firm white flesh taste like nectar. I've always had a thing about pears and remember as a child visiting an auntie who had a large collection of figurines. She kindly suggested that my sister and I might like to name one and after a lot of argument the blond soldier boy was christened Timothy Pear, neither of us willing to concede to the others preference. I wonder if he still exists, standing to attention in his plastic tube.

Our dog a black working Cocker who has spent the summer chewing bones and causing mischief, needs to get fit for the season ahead, so inspired by this and the cold start I threw on my tattered barber and took her out with the gun. It was only 4:30 PM but already the shadows cast by the hedgerow oaks were stretching long across the meadow. Pigeons and rooks moved about the distant gateway but departed in leisurely fashion as I approached. Suddenly two hen birds broke from a clump of stinging nettles to my right and in one fluid movement unforgotten by arms and eye I swung, squeezed the trigger and missed clean. Reassuring that some things don't change with time and as if to hammer the point home Treacle took off (apparently unimpeded by an idle summer) at breakneck speed in pursuit of the second bird, which had glided low towards the Orchard. In fairness she came back with reasonable promptness and together we skirted the pear trees up to the hilltop. I never tire of the view from that spot and today the patchwork of fields newly sown and dry had a beige, creamy look about them. In the far distance fading field maples frayed the edges of oak stands still resolutely green and close by, avenues of ageing poplar made striking lines of yellow, marking the windward boundaries of hop gardens long since forgotten.

Carrying on I worked the dog in every available clump of bramble and thorn and every time she emerged her tongue was out and tail wagging furiously. I didn't have another shot or even have the opportunity, but it felt good to be out again with a gun under my arm and an unruly, scampering hound around my feet.

Dinner

Spaghetti Bolognese. We don't keep cattle, but I slaughtered and butchered a bullock for a farmer friend a couple of months back and got paid in meat. Nothing special to mention except I never fry my garlic with the onions any more, but add it later to get more flavour.