L I V E 2 4 -SE V EN
CLAIRE IN THE COUNTY NOTHING L ASTS FOREVER…
The signs are out…the dreaded signs…‘PLUMS FOR SALE’! At this point you must think I’m completely bonkers, but every year, as the harvest comes to an end and the swallows gather on the wires, my heart sinks!
Don’t get me wrong, I love autumn, but there is that sense of foreboding… the nights are closing in, the light changes (I can’t explain it, but it just does) and after one of the most memorable summers, certainly in my lifetime, there is that resignation that we are going downhill from here on in. It’s wet weather, stews and dark nights! Goodbye light mornings, sunshine and salads!
There is an upside, well there is if you are the size of a moose, which I am! It’s time to reach into the wardrobe and pull out the layers. I can hide a multitude of sins under my autumnal clothes. Baggy jumpers, scarves, waistcoats, thick tights and flat shoes – a much better look than the one I have supported for the majority of this summer, which was a dripping wet, red- faced lump of lard literally melting in meetings. This summer I was trapped in a marquee delivering a talk to owners and
riders at a top dressage event. It was the hottest day of the year and I was so embarrassed, as the sweat dripped off my nose. I resorted to using a red napkin to mop my brow (in truth my entire face) I thought I hid it well…BUT NO… as I left the event the host went to wipe my face, convinced I had a lipstick smear or nail varnish, but the truth was it was soggy red paper. I didn’t know where to put myself. I scuttled away quickly, to the sanctuary of my little air-conditioned car.
So, when you take the children back to school in September and you pause to take a deep breath after the chaos of the school holidays, plan your new found free time well – a little shopping to cheer yourself up perhaps? Buy those new boots and a lovely new jumper. Think about stocking the freezer up for the dark nights, stop off and buy some plums – fill the freezer up with plum crumbles for the winter ahead, make that damson gin, boil up the blackberry and apple jam, make some apple chutney…and therein lies the heart of my problem!
The dark nights equal depression; depression equals comfort eating, which means I become overweight and have to go shopping to buy bigger clothes, which makes me depressed, so I have double helpings of crumble…and so it goes on…
Perhaps this year I will invest in a winter holiday and the thought of wearing a bikini will be incentive enough to diet… well I can but dream!
Now where is the preserving pan…I feel an urgent need to rattle up some plum jam…
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