72 micro-seasons 56

Janey...

The first cold morning...

Sparrows queue like tiny Oliver Twists along the fence

Kit...

Gloaming, sharp air, hoot of an owl, crank of pheasants, spill of a solway sunset, every shade of fire ...

Beverley...

Blue after the gloom. The absence of wind has passed. Still the roses, cosmos and bright calendula.

Helen...

Twice in one day a hare lopes softly by the side of the road. The first, tinged pink and gold in misty sunset, the second shivering pale under a cold bright moon.

Jane...

Heron glides slowly through dew-heavy air, alights out of sight in woods.

72 micro-seasons 55...

Janey...

Springlike sunshine, yet the wuthered hawthorn where the stonechats hide is bare

Kit...

Round the rusty hay feeder a stare of cows, the colour of crows, conkers and cream - winter feeding's begun.

Jane...

Branches shift, leaves quiver and fall. Clouds fly above us.

Helen...

Dark soft soil seems to welcome the alium bulbs we push down, dreaming of spring.

Beverley...

It’s November and a patch of hollyhocks is in full bloom.

72 micro-seasons 54...

Janey...

Winter whispers in my ear, though honeysuckle still scents a sheltered wall

Jane...

Birds swoop and lift and plough in a grey sky, halt in the thin rust shelter of beech and cherry.

Helen...

At dusk the autumn colours spill into the air, and light itself seems pink and orange.

Beverley...

Blueless, windless days. Leaves falling on breath. The linden tree is bare.

Kit...

Hallelujah for Persicaria, the last raspberry blush of colour in my tangle of floral decay.

'Jeanie'

Washed by salty tears, 

your name yet undiminished

in the grieving heart

72 micro-seasons 53...

Janey...

Unspooling silently across a perfect sky, a skein of wild geese

Jane...

It's not raining but the air is heavy with moisture, rust leaves bright against the grey sky.

Helen...

An October damp softness in the air and nothing hurries.

Beverley...

Half term pumpkin-pickers thread the patch with chatter.

Little ones in new wellies fall over and rise up muddy.

Kit...

Last night's raindrops hang on barbed wire, glass beads catching light in early misty stillness.

72 micro-seasons 52

Janey...

Gutters plashing, furious

streams in spate, high-tide pebbles roiling - 

The sound, always, of water in my life

Beverley...

Four muntjacs hold time before running over the track-braided earth, graze a while, and vanish.

Helen...

The storm leaves great drifts of beech leaves in the corners of a courtyard, bright blue sky above.

Kit...

Ever shorter days ...

we swim in the almost-light hugging the bank, the swollen river running

Jane...

Hints of pink crack through grey scudding clouds. My friends the trees appear, looming.

72 micro-seasons 51

Janey...

After the full moon

gulls hunt insects in the slates

heralding their finds

Beverley...

Countless glistening cobwebs hang on empty seedheads and faded grasses. Morning mist makes ghosts of trees.

Helen...

Acer leaves fall and lie like tiny stars, red, yellow and gold.

Kit...

Up from the barely dressed birch copse, a quiver of forge-fresh crows fly into the greymilk sky