Wick (George Bremner): Week 12 – 3 October

It’s officially autumn, which arrived gently, even stealthily, like someone sneaking up behind you only to burst a water balloon two inches above your head. Yes, we had our first storm of the winter on Friday—nothing like the hurricane that hit Florida and the Carolinas, of course, and our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected—but driving rain nonetheless and winds strong enough to qualify as storm force (55-63 mph). The tree at the bottom of our garden is mostly hanging onto its leaves, but it already has a defeated look, like a boxer whose wobbling knees have just about made it to the end of the first round, and who realises a rubdown with a damp sponge may not be enough.

Twirl of haws

The agricultural Anglo-Saxons called autumn hærfest, or “harvest” (which also appears as hairst in Old Scots). It’s thought that this only fell out of favour once people began to live in towns and cities. “Fall” was another common word in England for autumn, of course, until it stowed away on the Mayflower and started a new life for itself in the New World. Fall mostly refers to leaves, and I was interested to learn that “the fall of the leaf” and “the spring of the leaf” were also used for the seasons. (Winter possibly derives from a word meaning “wet”, which supports my theory that Caithness is the real cradle of civilisation.) Robert Burns wrote a poem called The Fall of the Leaf, which starts promisingly, with lines like “The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown/ And all the gay foppery of summer is flown” before taking a decidedly gloomy turn (“How long I have liv’d—but how much liv’d in vain/ How little of life’s scanty span may remain”), which suggests he wasn’t at home to Mr Cheerful on the day he wrote it.

Remains of flowers

But then, autumn does rather bring out the gloomy side of poets, especially Chinese poets (more than usual, I mean; they are poets, after all); as in Li Yu’s splendidly named How Can a Man Escape Life’s Sorrow and Regret? But sometimes the poems convey stillness and serenity. Here’s one of my favourites, Autumn Twilight, Dwelling Among Mountains by Wang Wei (699-759):

In empty mountains after the new rains,
it’s late. Sky-ch’i has brought autumn—

Bright moon incandescent in the pines,
crystalline stream slipping across rocks.

Bamboo rustles: homeward washerwomen.
Lotuses waver: a boat gone downstream.

Spring blossoms wither away by design,
but a distant recluse can stay on and on.

Trees & distant sheep

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TECHNICAL STUFF

Well, here we are: the end of another gansey project. I’m quietly pleased with it. There was a time when I began to fear that the yoke was getting away from me and would end up too big, but I’ve tried it on and it’s a pretty comfortable fit on me (my actual chest size by tape measure is in the 41.5/42 inch bracket, depending on how many crisps I’ve eaten). I’d classify this as an extra large in UK sizing, maybe a large/extra large in US. And the pattern stands out nicely: when the pattern catches the light, it really catches the eye. Next week, a surprise extra before we knuckle down to our next project. Watch this space…