September

Is September late summer or early autumn? Tuesday was the hottest day of the year in the South East of England (where I wasn’t – thankfully) but today is cool and wet. The trees are starting to brown and the apples and blackberries are very good. This is Keats on the subject.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells

These were at Tollesbury in Essex at the beginning of the month, overlooking the marina and the moorings and mud berths among the creeks of the salt marsh. 

This is where I was when it was so hot down south – Great Orme above Llandudno in North Wales.

I took this photograph before I read the information board in the visitor’s centre and my instinct was sound. According to the board
“Purple heather and bright yellow gorse against a blue sea is one of the most striking sights of late summer”.
The board goes on to say that coastal heath is an endangered habitat and that if you look closely the flowers are more than heather and gorse. There are several types of heather, including ling which is the commonest, bell heather which is a brighter pink and some of the yellow is tormentil which was a cure for toothache.

The island in the centre of the picture is Puffin Island off the tip of Anglesey – from the trig point on the other side of the tramway I could see the Isle of Man (with binoculars, when I could stand upright in the wind).

It was all rather impressive.