Autumn in the Air

Pepsi (what camoflage!) and Max

I've had a good weekend. Yesterday I went brambling again and got loads, but boy you have to suffer for collecting them!  In the first place I had to battle through knee high grass and weeds to get to the bushes resulting in trousers soaked up to the knee.  At the next picking spot I has to wrestle through nettles and thorny branches resulting in scratched hands that stung for the rest of the day!  And finally, the lovely weather quickly changed, with a few thunderclaps and I got rained on, so pretty much all of me, not just my lower legs, was wet by time I got back to my car.  Once home I got busy right away and got ten jars of bramble jam out of my travails so it was worth it.

Pretty, but deadly

There is definitely a touch of autumn around now, there's an occasional nip in the air and the leaves are turning slowly but surely. The fireweed's pink is fading and  it's growing the feathery seed pod tufts ready to drift off to find a place to settle to hibernate for the winter before sprouting again in the spring. There were also lots of fungi and toadstools, some so pretty (but deadly) you almost expected a pixie to be sitting on them!  I always used to hate this time of year because it heralded the winter, which is my least favourite season, but now I appreciate the beauty of it.







Today was cool and I went into town with Pepsi to meet up with a friend and go to the Continental Market.  I parked in Portland Square and walked through the Victorian garden in the middle of the square.  The flower beds there were beautiful.  We may moan at Carlisle City Council at times but they really have fabulous parks and the baskets/troughs around Hardwicke Circus are especially beautiful and always are every year.

At the market I always like to have a proper German charcoal grilled bratwurst, it definitely is the real thing, yum yum!  There were some very interesting stalls but I resisted buying anything as I'm on another "austerity drive."  I lost count of the people that stopped me to ask about/touch Pepsi, "What kind of dog is that?", "Is it a Dandy Dinmont?", "I've got a long haired at home, they are lovely dogs but very stubborn" (so true!!)  "He's very sweet natured,",  "Ooooh doggie doggie",  "He's so gorgeous".......  I must admit he does have a lot of the cute factor and just can't resist a tickle LOL.