Red Autumn

Most of us in Britain are unsure when Autumn ends and winter begins. Not least this year, when the last cold winter has bumped back the whole seasonal cycle, meaning the Autumn leaves hung around until,...well, they’re still doing a pretty good job of hanging in there as I write. Which is something, surely? Temperature-wise however, you might feel that rather than holding off Winter, that Autumn rather rolled over and died some weeks ago. The snow here in, ah, Snowdonia, is down to the valleys. As XTC once asked, "who's pushing the pedals on the Season Cycle?"

The fact is that officially, astronomically, autumn in the UK begins with the September equinox (September 23 this year) and ends with the December solstice (December 21). So it’s still Autumn for a while yet. As such, Keats’ Ode To Autumn – the classic text everyone wheels out on these occasions – can make for strange reading. Did they have a totally different climate in 1819, when he wrote this and his other odes (he'd die a year later)? Because his description of Autumn sounds more like the best we can expect from a summer two centuries on. “Season of mists,” well, yes, check, indeed let’s add “freezing fog”: but “mellow fruitfulness”? “Edgy barrenness” more like. 

But, look around you and that’s not quite the case. Especially here in Snowdonia.

For years I thought November was bare. If it was a colour, it was grey. But in recent years I’ve noticed that November’s true colour is red. And this year, December looks like it’ll have a crimson tinge too. Oh, I don’t mean the shrivelled blackberries on the brambles, surreal as mayflowers in February. And yes, I know we’ve missed the rowans. But there are fuchsias blooming all down the hillside from my cottage. There are fruiting Pyracanthas in people's gardens. There are cotoneasters (the first pic at the top) growing wild in the quarries and on the hillside. There's this stuff that I don't even know the name of. Berberis?

There are rosehips, past their prime for jelly (I made some last year, which was possibly the sweetest thing I've ever tasted; this year I missed the boat) but still a startling crimson.

These hips were shot early morning just down the road from my cottage: Tan Y Fron is an arty blur behind the berries. 

On top of that there’s holly on the boughs. Forecasting a harsh winter, apparently. To which it's tempting to say, simply, "no kidding? We hadn't noticed. Erasmus eat your heart out."

And there’s hawthorn berries, lots of hawthorn berries. Tan Y Fron is positively hemmed in by blazing russet hawthorns. 

The old word for hawthorn berries, “haws”, doesn’t get used much now, for obvious reasons. The berries themselves don’t get used much either, many people erroneously assuming that both they and rowans are poisonous. My partner has a fantastic cookery book, Farmehouse Fare, which collects farmer’s wives recipes from the 1930s. When I looked up “haws” in it, there was a recipe for haw sauce. But they clearly thought that its use was so obvious that they didn’t bother to say what to serve it with. I made some anyway. It’s weird, but it’s delicious. But no, I still haven’t quite decided what to serve it with.  

The point is though, Autumn in Britain gets a bad press. OK, so your energy supplier has "reassessed" your direct debit payment to match the temperature. Granted, it's a bad time for a garden party, outdoor wedding or for trying and paint the outside of your house (the only one of those three I've tried so far this Autumn). But with one of the most stunning array of turning leaves to be seen in decades, and a rich crop of red berries and flowers everywhere you turn, Autumn's also just a beautiful time of year. Especially in Snowdonia.

Feel like seeing for yourself? Visit my cottage website.

About The Weather

PART 1: WEATHERED 

While growing up in Snowdonia in the 1970s, I couldn’t understand the fuss my parents made about the weather. Listening in religious silence to the forecast on what they still called the Home Service (it’d been Radio 4 since 1967). Making a carefully telegraphed exception to the “no telly before 4 pm” rule to check the Weather News (nice Michael Fish shifting clouds and suns manually).

   When the weather forecast didn't give satisfaction, they were forever scurrying off outside to study cloud patterns, reminding me of Rod Hull and Emu up on the roof of Broadcasting House in souwesters, delivering the weather forecast."Weather, weather, all together, what's it gonna do? We don't know, so let's ask Weatherman Emu!"

    Really, these parents seemed ruled by the weather, to be vassals and slaves of the elements, pincered by rain and snow on one hand and sunshine on the other (“the grass is getting out of control. But of course, I didn’t have to cut the grass, paint the external woodwork, or bed the new garden steps in concrete. Nor did I share my parents’ passion for mountain walking.

   The worst that the weather could do to me was to stop me from sitting in my tree house, or roaming through the earthquake fissures in the granite slabs above my house. Back to my bedroom with the Chronicles of Narnia. The best it could do was to get me out of going up another stupid mountain in my hated orange waterproof. Because, whatever the weather forecast said, it would rain.

   All these adult responsibilities were lurking, of course, ready to darken my teens with a small taste of boringness to come. Except that I thought when I was grown up I’d let the grass grow rampant, let the paintwork blister and be damned. So in my teens I was glad if rain stopped grass-cutting or snow scuppered woodwork painting. Back to David Bowie and John Le Carre in my bedroom. And naturally, by then I was refusing point-blank to go up a mountain. Least of all with my parents. 

   Well, we all turn into our parents eventually. Particularly if we’re trying not to. You focus on one parent not to emulate, leaving your flank exposed: because, after all, everyone only really has one of two role models to choose from. 

   So for a start, I’ve done what so many people do and gone back to where I grew up. Snowdonia in my case. To a village, Fachwen, that’s just across the valley from where I grew up. Nostalgia buffed and polished. Like my parents, I bought a rundown old farmer’s cottage (Snowdon Cottage) and renovated it.

And it's now available as a self-catering holiday cottage (Snowdon Cottage Website) and looks like this: 

OK, so just to complete  those parallels, as a result of renovating my cottage, I’ve now become  as obsessed with the weather as my parents were. You don’t want to be tottering around on a roof when there’s a gale blowing – not unless you want to end up like Rod Hull (Rod Hull's demise). 
   It’s demoralising to see the masonry paint you’ve just laboriously painted on being washed off by sudden rain, leaving a milky white film over your beautiful slate patio.

   Or worst of all, to start off laying said patio on a stunning, crisp Autumn day, but then find yourself a) rained on, b) hailed on and c) snowed on in the course of a working day. In fact I’m still waiting for a decent run of good weather to finish the patio off.

   Then there’s the grass. Nowadays I find myself fretting it’ll rain on the one day I’ve available between lets at Tan Y Fron. If it rains the night before, will the next day be dry enough to mean I can still cut the grass without churning it into mulch and scorch-marks.

   And predictably, as an adult I love mountain walking. And while I don’t even mind going up in the rain that much thanks to the power of decent waterproofs (http://www.joe-brown.com/), the people I’m walking with often do mind. Especially children. And besides a fine day will still make the difference between a scurry and a walk, a conflict with the mountain and a communion.

   So nowadays, the first thing I do when I wake up is check the local weather forecast on the internet. But which forecast?

PART 2: FORECASTS

The BBC just doesn’t get close enough. It offers Betws-Y-Coed, but really that’s in the foothills of Snowdonia. In the highlands of Snowdonia, where Tan Y Fron is located, we’ve got microclimates that mean there’s a distinct difference in weather between my village of Fachwen and even nearby villages like Llanberis or Deiniolen. Let alone Caernarfon, which is the other option. Seven miles away. I can see Caernarfon from Tan Y Fron and it tends to be annoyingly brighter over there. Weather envy, huh? But it’s way more beautiful up in Fachwen. And, being high up, when the sun does come our way, it sticks around for much longer. 
   An alternative to the BBC is Netweather, which does a 7-day forecast, supposedly focused on next village, Dinorwig. It also has the added advantage of... Michael Fish (oh yes, a circular blog theme) out of retirement and apparently doing long-term forecasts in his bedroom. It's kind of sweet but also slightly surreal, like seeing your dad pretending to be Michael Fish on the webcam he doesn't quite understand how to use yet.

   The Met Office (above) is actually the place all our weather information comes from, so why not go straight to the source? Except the Met Office’s site confused me for some time (not least why we don’t pronounce it “Meat Office” as in “meteorological” and yes, I had to check the spelling of that).  Initially, it seemed the only options were, again Betws-Y-Coed - or  Porthmadog  - miles away out on the Lleyn Peninsula, a coastal climate that bears little relationship to ours.

   But I kept fiddling and found a completely different menu which for some reason had Capel Curig – much nearer to Fachwen – on it. I finally figured out that this is the “latest weather” section of the Met site: it tells you what the weather has been doing up until now. I have to admit I’m confused about a) why this information comes from different locations to the forecast and b) what use it is exactly.   

   Then I discovered (doh!) that there’s a separate Mountain Area Forecasts section on the Met site and you can choose "Snowdonia". Still, I’m intrigued by how this works: a little research suggests the nearest actual weather station is RAF Valley – on Anglesey, which has a notably balmier climate.  
   Also, a friend who's a member of the local Mountain Rescue team recently tipped me to XCWeather, where you can home in on Dinorwig (next village to Fachwen). I’m slightly suspicious about where exactly its weather stations are – or its satellites are homing in on? – but there do at least seem to be some differences between Betws-Y-Coed and Fachwen.

   I don’t pretend to have all the answers: I’d like this Weather section of my blog to be an ongoing project (like my slate patio). So tips, thoughts, disagreements and discussion are all actively welcomed.

Of course, my younger self would be appalled. It’s bad enough to be checking forecasts and fretting about rain on uncut grass. But now here I am actively encouraging people to talk to me about the weather. 

Visit my cottage website.