The relentless summer rain has given way to golden autumn sunshine. A chocolate box blue sky is decorated with perfect puffy flat bottomed little clouds gliding majestically across the valley. Sloes, fat and shiny fill the hedgerows with plump black wild plums and glistening blackberries. Orchards are heavy with fruit. Golden stubble fields striped green are evidence of a meagre harvest gathered at last after the  summer floods that devastated livestock and crops alike. Feed and hay prices are rising, vegetables will be in short supply this winter.  Even my own little harvest is the worst I’ve ever had. Potato blight destroyed my vegetable garden this year, caused, I suppose by wet, water logged soil. It swept through potatoes, beans, tomatoes. And then the badgers had a midnight feast, disco in fact, in my little patch of sweet corn. They trashed the plants and munched on every cob leaving their debris for me to clear up. Maddening as it is I rather wish I’d seen them having such fun!

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