Wednesday 31st August 2022 - Dwindling, Tipples and Out in the Countryside
It’s becoming noticeable that the number of daylight hours are dwindling. When I wake at five in the morning, it still has a way to go before full light and come the evening, it is pretty well dark by nine. Quite sobering to think that autumn is on its way and tomorrow it will be meteorological autumn, a fact I am sure the TV weather presenters will remind us. It has been quite breezy these last couple of days which has brought down dry and brown leaves from the trees, but this is probably the result of the dry summer months rather than an early autumn.
Our concerns that we may not find any juicy blackberries and sloes for Peter to make blackberry vodka and sloe gin, two tipples to sip over Christmas and into the New Year, proved to be unwarranted. We found a couple of places on our afternoon walks which yielded both fruits, succulent and perfect to pop into bottles before Peter topped them up with the spirits. We even had enough blackberries for the freezer which will be used in blackberry and apple pies. We also saw some impressive sized acorns. Unfortunately, my photo doesn’t show their size, perhaps I should have held a coin up against them before I took the shot. I wasn’t sure what you classify acorns as, so I looked it up online and they are nuts which provide food for a variety of wildlife, as well as having a culinary role in early human history.
On Sunday afternoon we watched seven buzzards wheeling above the trees in woodland on the outskirts of Northrepps. They seem to be flourishing in numbers but only occasionally grace the skies here in Overstrand. If they do, it is not long before the gulls make it quite clear, they are not welcome in what they perceive as, their territory. We are also seeing an increasing number of muntjac deer. Three spotted in a distant field on Sunday, we think they may be the same three we saw in closer proximity earlier in August and then there was one on the same afternoon which was in the tall grasses on a field edge and another walking down the loke opposite us one early morning. I hope they stay mainly in the countryside, maybe eating some of those acorns I mentioned, and not make too much of a nuisance of themselves in villagers’ gardens.
