First Sunday of Autumn

The sweet peas in the purple tub are flowering like billy-oh, their trailing bulk now supported , eccentrically, on a garden chair; the wonderful Joesphine Bruce rose, now presumably in its second flush, is producing great scented globes of crimson; the lone sunflower, planted late, is showing feeble little yellow petals far too flimsy for the plant's size. So far, so scented, so summery. But the hedgerows are full of red rose-hips and gleaming black brambles and the rose bay willowherb is a mass of white fluff, and it is no longer summer. The Meteorological people tell us that official Autumn began five days ago, and they are correct. And this evening and into the night it has been raining, a fine drizzle in the mild, still air, and the garden is miraculously perfumed.

This morning was noteworthy - for me anyway - in that the excellent sermon we heard gave me a new insight into a problematic gospel passage and tied, with thundering clarity, the link across the centuries between the syrophoenician woman and Syrians of our time. And the Afghans, and ... and ... There were no pulpit thunderings, no pointing fingers - just a quiet insistence that we think about what we profess, and then do something.

My main photo comes from a shortish walk along the coast this afternoon. The sea was perfectly calm, the tide low, the wind non-existent. The yachts at anchor didn't stir, and the distant Rothesay ferry hadn't yet stirred up the rollers. But I had to include my extra, taken in our back lane this morning. I heard the cacophony of heavy machinery the other day, and the unmistakable noise of something scraping and rolling, and though I was too idle to look at the time, curiosity overcame me today. Our lane is privately owned - each house owns the bit outside its back wall, extending halfway across the lane - and has always tended to potholes (hence our SUV ...) Clearly in a bit of independent action one - or perhaps two - households have declared UDI and decided to tarmac their little bit, regardless of the effect on anyone else driving over it. 

Eccentric or what?