The change in seasons is making itself known this week, is it not, with lashing wind and driving rain. The burn is in spate and we await the return of sea trout and salmon who thrash and drive against the current to spawn at this time of year. Fallen apples litter the grass beginning to be crumbled and elderberries nod on upturned umbrellas soon to be turned into tonic. The fire was lit last night and knitting gathered; it’s Mabon on Saturday, the Autumn Equinox, and time for another of our quarterly newsletters from Bridge Cottage, down clarty lonnen.
How has your summer and growing season been? It’s been a funny one, hasn’t it, with rain on St Swithen’s Day and for what seemed like the predicted forty days and forty nights thereafter. Then true to form, the sun beat down just as teachers and schoolchildren returned to their classrooms. That used to be me, and every year now, at the beginning of September I think back to the return to school and wish everyone good luck as they go back. Our eldest son Tom has just started his teacher training, and we wish him all the very best. It’s been quite a year for him, as he married Rachel in the summer at a wedding on the beach on the Northumberland coast. The rain poured that morning too, with roads flooding on the way, but stopped in time for the most beautiful wedding outdoors in the dunes, to the accompaniment of crashing waves. It couldn’t have been more perfect.
Being in the silver surfer brigade now, retired and with a campervan to hand, we’ve just come back from a round country trip, visiting family and ending up in the New Forest, a place I hadn’t been since I was a nipper. What a magical place! Ancient forests, with wild ponies that came in ethereal procession from the woods as sunbeams danced through beech and oak to our campsite in the morning. And the donkeys! The beautiful bramble munching donkeys. Just adorable. We cycled miles, loving the relatively flat compared to our northern hills. However, it’s always good to come home, and the hills and mountains of the Lake District seen from the M6 were a welcome sight as we drove back, calling in at Tebay services for one of their excellent pies.
Like the weather, it’s been a mixed bag in the garden. Squash and tomatoes have done brilliantly, and cucumbers have dripped from the three plants in the greenhouse, and we’ve even taken to accosting passersby with spare cukes. The plum tree yet again was laden and despite having given it a good prune in Spring, branches still snapped under the weight of wood. Apples look to be a good crop, although nothing like last year when Tim made over 200 bottles of apple juice. Our neighbour tells us he only has one apple this year. We’ve saved seeds where we can for next year, and in particular from the tomatoes, which is easily done by smearing some seed scraped from a ripe tomato onto kitchen roll then dried. Kept in a cool, dry place, these can then be snipped into ones and twos to sow next year in early Spring and the freezer is well stocked with passata. We’ve done exceptionally well with chillies this year too, finding they like terracotta pots best and a bit of tough love leaving them to dry out on occasion. We’ll be making more of our fermented chilli sauce and stringing lots up to dry.
We’ve tried for the second year running to coax asparagus to grow and had half a dozen wispy shoots, but our resident hares have stripped them bare, and we’re wondering whether we should give up altogether. The hares also love to munch on my roses, much to the annoyance of Tim who planted me a rose garden for my 60th birthday. I hope we won’t have to give up on that.
I bought Tim a Brown Turkey fig plant for his 60th birthday, and I’m thrilled to say it’s given us 39 figs this year. Brown Turkey is an excellent variety for our northern climes. We grow ours in a pot from Errington Reay, our local pottery here in Bardon Mill, and against a south-facing wall. I have such fond memories of a holiday in Ibiza, listening to a party higher up on the hill, with the sound of Balearic beats and overripe figs plopping on the stone ground from an enormous fig tree on the patio beside us.
The greenhouse has given much and is now being planted up with veg to over winter. We should get a final flourish of spinach and chard, salad crops are still coming and brassicas are in there to over winter. We’ve had good success again growing carrots in buckets, mixing a bit of sand with homegrown compost. I’m going to set another away but keep it in the greenhouse, and in a nod to my Grandad, plant a couple of potatoes in a bucket for new potatoes for Boxing Day salads.
We’ll be out this week and next gathering elderberries to make a seasonal tonic – the family are already putting in requests for bottles. Not only is it delicious but bursting with immunity-boosting properties, it’s so easy to do too and freezes well in recycled plastic bottles – here’s the link and a few other articles I’ve written that you may find helpful as we begin to pickle and preserve and lay down stores for winter.
To be honest it’s been the royal we in the garden, with Tim doing most of the work this year. My writing has taken off and keeps me busy most days when not childminding grandchildren or nicking off in the campervan. My debut novel, The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn is being printed as we speak, with a publication date of 28th October and is available to pre-order from my publishers, The Book Guild or wherever you buy your books. I have made a new website and am selling signed copies and giclée prints of the artwork used to inform the cover design there. I’ll also be taking Molly on the road in the run-up to Christmas, revisiting fairs that were once the haunt of The Woolly Pedlar, and book events are coming in thick and fast (more tbc soon). I’ll be signing copies of my book and chatting to folk at:
Waterstones Hexham Saturday 28th October
Alston Moor Craft Fair Fri 17th - Sunday 19th November
Cogito Books Hexham Saturday 18th November
Errington Reay Winter Fair Sunday 26th November
Hexham Christmas Market Saturday December 9th
When thinking about the design for the book cover, I was very sure that I wanted my book, my word art, to be packaged in a beautiful cover, in visual art. I asked local artist Louise Hick, whose work is ‘inspired by the magic of plants and animals’, to paint a picture reflecting Molly, the themes in The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn, and the three acts in the book, Hare Moon, Pink Moon and Flower Moon. I wanted an organic, natural feel, and Louise captured that brilliantly in her painting. This was sent to The Book Guild team to inform the cover design process.
We are thrilled to be able to offer this artwork a limited edition giclée print, numbered and signed by Louise. These would make a super gift for a teenager: a copy of the novel, and a print for the bedroom wall.
Order a signed copy of The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn and/or artwork from Sue’s website
See upcoming book launch events or arrange an author visit.
Order from publishers, The Book Guild
Here’s a quick synopsis of the story:
It’s spring 2020 and fifteen-year-old Molly McFlynn is uprooted from town life by her mam to live with her bohemian grandparents in rural Northumberland. Molly is furious – her friends abandon her, the food is inedible and her grandmother is doing strange things in the garden at night. Life takes a new direction when she meets a girl in the woods who appears to be on the run. Martha is from the seventeenth century, and a life lived on the edge of society. She is fleeing from the witchfinder and the men who have hurled her mother, Ann Watson, into the dungeons in Newcastle. As Molly’s friendship with Martha grows, Molly reconciles with her true self, develops a love of nature and moves away from her consumerist lifestyle. However, as Covid strikes and a local witch hunt takes place, Martha’s is not the only life that is in danger. Molly must stand up for what is right, help heal family rifts and come to the rescue in a moment of peril.
'We all need a Molly in our lives. Brave and impetuous, with an honest,
distinctive and timely voice, this girl is the real thing.
I loved getting to know her.' Ann Coburn, author of Glint
Thanks for reading my Autumn Equinox newsletter. If you’d like to follow my writing more, I have another Substack, Sue Reed Writes, where I write more regularly about the ups and downs of family life, dipping my toe into creative non-fiction and memoir writing. As ever, you can find us on our socials, both as The Bridge Cottage Way and Sue Reed Writes, and you can use The Bridge Cottage Way website as a resource all year round with articles on sustainable living, seasonal eating and growing our own food all year round.
Do hope your fires keep you cosy, and you have a healthy and happy Autumn. The next newsletter will be at the Winter Solstice. I’ve had quite enough sitting at the laptop for one day, I’m off to make an autumn wreath for the front door.