The bridleway to Coffinswell

September is often a beautiful month, and here in South Devon, the season has offered us some of the year's best weather.  Cloudless blue skies, albeit with a little bite in the air, has prolonged the gardening season, and really encouraged us to get out and make the best of it, before the impending Autumn falls, and Winter's grip returns.  On a crisp and stunning Sunday morning, we left our front door and headed up into the Woods, destination Coffinswell, a little village a couple of miles away.

At the top of our little housing estate lies Ben Stedham's Wood, a sliver of woodland separating the estate from the back road to Torquay.  It's a lovely wild area and a little haven for wildlife - particularly, at this time of year, fungi.  I don't have much knowledge of mushrooms and toadstools, but their shapes and sizes fascinate me, and this year we have been especially blessed with sheer variety, noticing them both in our own garden, and elsewhere.

Ben Stedham's Wood

Fungi in the woods

The woodland gives way to a bridleway, from where the walker or rider can either head north towards the Teign Estuary, or south to Coffinswell.  Turning south, we pass hedgerows of ferns and young oaks, in which perfect spider webs have been weaved, shimmering in the sun.  Like fungus, I have noticed a proliferation in spiders this September, and webs straddle every space, crossing every path back in our garden.  

Perfect spider web

Lying just off the bridle path, a lesser-known archaeological site is a reminder of the area's ancient connections.  Milber Down Iron Age hillfort sits some 2,500 years old, once inhabited by people of the Dumnoni, the ancient British people who inhabited what is now Devon and Cornwall.  The hillfort itself is not easily distinguishable to the untrained eye, and could easily be overlooked as nothing more than a grazing site for sheep.  Aside from the gentle, overgrown ramparts, the site offers fabulous views over Newton Abbot, from which I spy many of my childhood haunts - Highweek church in the distance (we used to call the downs there the Mountains,) Decoy Lake, and even Seale-Hayne College, now part of the Dame Hannah Rogers Trust - all overshadowed by the omnipresent moors.  If ever one view could encapsulate the word home, then this is surely it for me.

Milber Down in Hutchinson's Diaries, 1853.  Source: Devon.gov.uk

Newton Abbot

Back on the bridleway, we seem to move through several landscapes at some pace.  Woodland gives way to a view of the South Devon link road, under-construction and a big talking point in the town.  Further along still, we overlook a quarry, before suddenly finding ourselves once again back in the middle of the countryside, with rolling green fields ushering us ever closer to the Coffinswell village.  I haven't been to Coffinswell for a number of years, and certainly don't remember it being so pretty.  Thatched cottages and lovely little gardens greet us, and we nose over the low walls with interest to see what the locals are growing.  My favourite garden, although I had not the nerve to so audaciously take a photo, took pride in two enormous purple echiums, no doubt bought from Plant World just up the road, where they are grown each summer (and I fully intend to get my own, next year.)

Beautiful cottage in Coffinswell

Another Coffinswell dwelling

The end point of our little walk is the Linny, the lovely village inn dating from the 14th century.  A very happy welcome within, a drink on an outside table, soaking up the sun and country atmosphere, a reminder to me that when the world is in this sort of mood, there really is nowhere else I'd ever wish to be.

The Linny, Coffinswell

A lovely front garden in Coffinswell

A year in TQ12

Unbelievable though it is, we're celebrating the first anniversary of the move into our own house.  We've certainly been on a journey in the last twelve months, making the house into our very own home, somewhere we want to spend our time, and a perfect place to relax and enjoy.  Since September 2014, we've installed a new bathroom and boiler, put a new door on the garage, had a new TV aerial installed, decorated all-but-one of our rooms, built several bookshelves, tables, cabinets and a sideboard, laid insulation down in the loft, and hung some 30 pictures on various walls.  In the garden, meanwhile, we're slowly transforming the space into a wildlife-friendly area for year-round enjoyment, and thoroughly relishing the challenge.  No more words from me today, but here's a few before-and-after shots that sum up what we've spent the majority of our time (and money!) on this year:

September harvest

It's suddenly September, and that can only mean one thing in our household - blackberry picking.  Wandering the lanes hunting for blackberries is something of a tradition for us, and is always accompanied by that certain earthy feeling that the year is growing old, that summer is on the wane, and that autumn is being heralded in with each and every berry that hits the pot.  The plump, ripened berries are numerous in the hedgerows this year, so we picked just enough for Lizzie to make one of her trademark crumbles - just add the apples from our garden, and nothing could taste better.

Lizzie picking blackberries in the September sunshine

Back onsite, autumn is slowly taking its hold and the garden is slowly maturing into Keats' season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.  All but the hardiest of grasshoppers have ceased their chirping, the birdsong is low, and all around the wildlife is either reaching the conclusion of its lifecycle, or else preparing to overwinter.  Autumn colour has arrived in the form of the Michaelmas daisy and other aster varieties, plants which have grown ceaselessly throughout the spring and summer months, picking their flowering time perfectly to extend the gardening season another few weeks, and of course providing essential nectar to the bees in this relatively sparse time.

The Michaelmas daisy

A bee on the aster Anneke

A late grasshopper

Elsewhere, and following on from Monty Don's recommendations of Gardeners' World, we've invested in numerous cyclamens to bring some winter colour to our shady areas.  Word on the internet is that a good cyclamen will flower right through winter and into the following spring, and whilst I won't quite be expecting that, it's another source of nectar for late-flying bees, and will add some much appreciated winter colour at a time when the rest of the garden is tucking down.

Cyclamens adding winter colour in the garden shade

It's amazing to think that only a few weeks ago, I was bemoaning my tomato crop and exclaiming that this is the last time I will ever grow tomatoes.  The stumpy little plants, puny green fruits and lack of sunshine had somewhat dashed my spirits until, out of nowhere, came great trusses of plump scarlet fruits.  Suddenly I am picking tomatoes daily, and have probably sixty or seventy fruits still ripening on the vine.  It has made me rethink my rethink (maybe I will grow them next year after all...)  Similarly, after a shaky start back in late spring, my cucumbers have been a magnificent performer (the variety, Marketmore, is one to remember) and there is a real delight to stepping outside with a knife, and returning to the kitchen with a handful of crisp, fresh salad.

Tomatoes ripening on the vine

Successful cucumbers

Back in the kitchen, the autumn night drawing in with a slight chill, Lizzie tends to her famous blackberry and apple crumble, into which I've thrown some raspberries from my autumn-fruiting canes.  It's the greatest possible celebration of this time of year - a time of year that always moves me, a time for reflection on the summer past, but also an opportunity to look forwards to another phase in the never-ending cycle of gardening.

Delicious autumn crumble

A plateful of harvest