Tea time for a hedgehog ..

An early autumnal chill this morning.

Rainbow web strands drift in the air while buzzard families mew on extended wings high above. Jays screech. Chiffchaffs ‘whitt’ before their migration. Robins have returned to action, shaping up against interlopers.

Big, shiny conkers..

We collect big shiny conkers with our granddaughter. We don’t tell mummy that we narrowly avoided big spiky outer conker cases crashing through the leaves from above which exploded at our feet. I have promised sixty drilled and stringed conkers to the cubs for next week. Conkers are grey squirrel food. By night muntjac and roe deer also chow down on them in the big grass circle at the centre of the woodland garden where cyclamen hederifolium companies raise white-through-damask colours to claim territory.

Cyclamen hederifolium in autumn flower...

Grass is verdant again: a mowing hamster wheel on which I race but never win.

The compost bins, over-fuelled with grass cuttings, rapidly reach 70C+. The recent rains have released the energy of thousands of seeds in the vegetable garden. My sharpener spits out sparks as I put an edge on the hoe.

Outdoor tomatoes (heritage ‘Potato Leaf’) slowly come to ripen. As they begin to change colour we bring them indoors to finish off. We roast with onion and rosemary,

Tea time for a hedgehog

Through the night and in sight of my spy-cameras, two hedgehogs (‘Little’ & ‘Big’) regularly alert my phone to their presence with pings as they search the lounge terrace for beetles or visit the hedgehog cafe. Another reason for broken sleep.