Country diary: In this warm, damp autumn, the pastures are still fresh green | Virginia Spiers

Kit Hill, Tamar Valley, Cornwall: Up here the blackberries are rotting and the haws plentiful, while an ivy bush is full of flowersDrizzling cloud clears and the summit of Kit Hill becomes visible, so we venture up to its panorama, 600 feet above home. Today the Tamar's tidal estuary is a silver lake, and a strip of misted sea stretches from Rame towards Whitsand Bay and beyond Bin Down on the south coast. Patches of sun highlight verdant fields fringing orange bracken on Dartmoor to the east and Bodmin Moor to the west. In this warm, damp autumn, the expanse of pastures below our vantage point remains fresh and green.Up here, turf intersperses with yellow gorse, the faded pinks of bell heather, bramble flowers among rotting blackberries, and loads of haws on gnarled thorns. Rowans are bare, vigorous hollies sport ripening berries, stunted oaks retain burnished leaves, and sour apples cling to hardy trees, perhaps growing from pips spat out by quarry workers. Continue reading...