As we approach the Equinox, the sun appears strong and bright in the morning sky, a clear sky at that, gathering together the ingredients for a perfect Autumn day.

A day for walking, stopping often and observing the quickening of change, in all that grows and flies.

I watched the Swallows flying high in the clear sky above the cottage…one of many preludes to the incredible migratory flight to Africa.

I looked down, earthwards and noticed the Sedum opening clusters of pink, one of the last meals of the year for the bees.

All is change.

All is good, on this calm bright morning.

Tomatoes slowly ripen here on the veranda.

Thank you Tara Angell from New York, for the amazing little seeds these grew from.

They’re all over the garden and have become more Irish than the Irish as the saying goes!

The spiders spin and weave their magic all over the gardens too.

I hear people say, “Where has the summer gone…is time speeding up?”

Perhaps it is, but my body is more and more in tune with the seasons and time seems almost irrelevant.

The morning merges into afternoon and the quickening of autumn  reveals itself in the darker evening…yet to come!

If time is the measuring stick of our existence, then we are not living in the present, in the here and now.

I often reflect on these pictures I take, and ask myself, “What was I feeling then, at that moment?”

The clock was a horrid invention really…it ticks and measures and makes us panic and fret!

Today, I don’t need a clock or a calendar…I smell the season, I see the time…it’s morning, for the sun shines in from the east!

The light has weakened and changed, the summer is behind us.

Flowers on the Buddleia have turned into heavy droplets of seeds for the birds to feast their way through winter.

Pumpkins stand to attention!

Masses of red berries assure the birds of a kind over-wintering at Bealtaine Cottage, where Nature has bestowed abundance on all living creatures.

The lacy cobwebs dance in the morning sun.

And the mellowing leaves of the Ribes reflect in the mirror stillness of the water barrel.

Time to light the stove and boil the kettle…this is a morning, where stepping back outside, with a mug of tea, seems the only really sensible course of action to take!

The light beckons…

Missy observes from under the table…

And I pass through the cottage to return to the gardens…