Country diary: Signs of autumn, early but unmistakable | Gwyneth Lewis

Church Hanborough, Oxfordshire: Feral apple trees by the side of the road are dropping their windfalls on to the hard shoulder. I take my chances and park upBeyond the coppiced hazels edging Pinsley Woods, outside Church Hanborough, wheatfields shimmered gold. A lizard skittered in leaf litter, making a racket as loud as a rodent. In the tallest hazel branches where nuts had ripened first, a pair of squirrels were flinging down cobnuts ("cob" meaning "to throw gently" in Kentish dialect) to be picked up later, autumn on their mind.Still downy, the fruit combined two subtle shades of lime and apple green. The other type of hazelnut besides the cob - the filbert - is a longer nut, named in honour of St Philibert of Jumi?ges whose feast day falls on 20 August, when the nuts are thought to ripen. Squirrels don't follow the church calendar, though, so I find empty casings scraped with rodent teeth marks. Continue reading...