Late Summer

Some of the grasses at this time of year, heading into August, have grown to almost waist height, and there’s one spot where we see the purple dots of melancholy thistles amongst the green and yellows and hay-coloured grasses. The early harebells are already flowering purple and thick dewdrops hang from their stems. In these Scots pinewoods of Abernethy, the blaeberries are already ripening and there are patches of the forest where the bushes are laden, and when you walk through, the cuffs and shins of your trousers are stained purple. We’re trying to think about what the weather was like last year in what felt like a bumper year for blaeberries, but we’re not quite sure what the differences are between one year and the next, or why one year has a better crop than the last, though I am sure there are those we could ask. Our neighbour walked past with intent the other day, scooper in hand, and perhaps she’ll drop by later with a jar of jam for us. It’s the time of year for creeping lady’s tresses to push their way up, their slender stems a brighter green that seems to better fit to springtime, and they peek so delicately up through the heather and blaeberries they’re easy to miss, and often I miss noticing them till their flowers are already fading.

Autumn

The year’s moved on again and now the blaeberries are past their best, their leaves have turned yellow and are mottled with browns and blacks, and the heather’s turning from its varying shades of purple to the mauves of its dried-out husks. The yellow rattle has turned to the papery shells that give it its name. Someone reminded me the other day that the term in old Scots language for yellow rattle is the gowk’s shilling, gowk being a Scots word for cuckoo, and if you shake their stems you’ll surely see why both names are appropriate. How quickly the season has turned, and it’s into autumn. The air feels different. Has its nip. The sun has lost some of its warmth, sits lower, rises later, and casts longer shadows that reach out into the day. The bracken’s turning to rust, and the birches that sit amongst the pines are more easily identified from afar by their yellow tinged countenance.