The flower ladies were in the church on Saturday morning, decorating for the Harvest festival.
This particular flower person is Charlie, doing a vegetable table.
At the very last minute he couldn’t cut any flowers at all from the garden. A photographer was coming from the New York Times to take a portrait of him and to photograph his garden. We found out on Friday evening at 8 o clock that they wanted to arrive on Sunday morning. Bonkers. So vegetables it was.
When everyone was finished, the church looked completely beautiful.
Obviously I never get bored during services, but if I was to, I suspect my eye would wander to the tiny fragments of stained glass that make up the borders of the windows.
Or the plain, simple but perfect carving of the pilaster capitals. There is something almost minimalist in this high Victorian design.
We made our way back to the veg garden. It’s been an extraordinary harvest autumn, after all.
Did you spot the red admiral butterfly, bottom left in the picture above? Basking in the warm sunshine.
The garden was, to be fair, looking somewhat photogenic by midday on Sunday.
Charlie’s flower room. The pop-up shop, next door to us in Rugby Street, has I think what is best described as the soft opening tomorrow… Full-on madness will probably start next week – (not least because these weekend we’re off to Ledbury for whole new explorations with our friends over at Tinsmiths).
More flower room chaos.
The harvest festival service was lovely.
Stephen, our vicar, with Jim & Nic’s daughter Annie… glowing in the late afternoon sunshine as we came out of the church:
Just before we sat down for supper in the village hall, this extraordinary sunset opened up in the sky. In all the years I’ve lived in the valley now, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything quite like it.
The colours faded to a purple, and then it was gone.
And we returned to the hall, and had a crazy night in only the way we can here in the village…
And all felt very well with the earth. Autumn is here.
