France puts on a show.

With great slabs of stone and mullion windows, the walled town of Carcassonne affords us some beautiful sights and adorned with the simplest of clay pots and a few geraniums makes a heartwarming photo. Even the old moat bed makes for a fertile and useful veg patch, seen from above by the bridge to the castle.

Even the remotest of villages perk their homes up with strategically placed 'mini gardens'. Right up in the hills, near Andorra, this apartment is all the more colourful with this addition of flowers.

All is safely gathered in.

Two weeks ago, Luke and I went shopping in Somerset. Luke, however, doesn't like shopping - in Somerset or anywhere to be precise so after being dragged around the shops for an hour it was time to escape from the hustle and bustle of all things retail and to investigate what else was happening on that Saturday afternoon.
Up in the town of Street we discovered that the Harvest show was taking place and was free to all so we ventured inside the town-hall and found a treasure chest of flowers and veg, all marked up and some awarded Best in Show status.

Here's a small selection of what was on display.

Fat berries, juicy tomatoes.

This week my lips should have been bruised with the ruby red of so many raspberries. There's something very organic about just pulling the dark, fat ones off their stems and, blowing hard on them to dislodge any bits or tiny insects, popping them right into my mouth. I don't know how many I've eaten this way but between me and the chickens I don't think poor Luke has tasted more than a handful.

Having autumn fruiting berries tricks me into thinking that summer still isn't quite over for us. 

And as for the tomatoes, the revelation of truly ripe, sweet cherry tomatoes equalling the sweetness of grapes and strawberries. A sun-warmed cherry tomato plucked straight from it's plant is delicious beyond words. 

Autumn starts reminding me of cold days and warm stews with those root vegetables but I still have a few weeks of these two fruit to keep me thinking of the sun.

A Gaggle of Geese

The joys of driving along a deserted country lane only to be joined by a line of geese, honking away with their necks stretched out in a thick line infront of their bodies and looking like the whole process is easy. I wound down my window and kept up with them as they made their way parallel with me until the road veered off and I lost sight of them. But then the magic of two dozen more geese in a lop sided V crossed the lane, honking loudly. It quickened my heart and put the biggest smile on my face ever.