equinoctal ramble

Yesterday, alongside the footpaths between Girton and Coton: teasel, reedmace, crab apples, blackberries




And, in Coton itself, medlar (or "open-ers" as Chaucer called them... that's "ers" as in "*rse", owing to the way the fruit split open when "bletted", which is to say, frost-damaged and very ripe...) edited to add: excellent, the Wikipedia entry on medlars, quotes not only chaucer but some nice, bawdy, Shakespeare
medlar with small yellow snail the village tapestry (brilliant idea, every village should have one) on display in the church
detail from the tapestry
and a monument which we weren't able to read (couldn't get close enough) but--with the hourglasses, the angel and the skull and crossbones--we got the general message (the sort of message that is always on my mind at the year's quarter days). Mind you, I'd have liked to have known more about the whys and wherefores of the mattock and spade underneath the skull...
Agriculture has clearly played an important part in this village over the centuries. The stook of corn made me smile (most of the corn cut hereabouts gets rolled up into big tubes and shrink-wrapped in black plastic). And a wonderfully wonky house...As we left Coton we stopped at the Plough, to imbibe cider, then we ambled along the cyclepath to Cambridge where, after pausing to imbibe more cider at the Eagle, we caught a bus home.

Autumn is my favourite season: fruit, falling leaves to crunch through, puddles to splash in, bonfires and brilliant sunsets.