Free - September in Abbeydore by Liberty Nimmo, October 2026
September’s second spring has absolutely flourished. The birds have all been singing their heads off morning and eve, the grass has yomped away and the wildflowers have been sent flowering off into the next round; the field scabious is blooming as though it were June. Our migratory winged friends have all gone, but everything else would have you thinking we’d jumped a few months backwards in the year. My wardrobe feels particularly confused and, no sooner had I dug out my raincoat and winter socks than I found myself re-applying suncream and contemplating a pair of shorts I had already earmarked for the drawer.
At least those heavy days from the summer drought feel like they’ve finally passed with the arrival of some rainfall and cooler days. Up on the Ewyas Harold Common, the autumn crocuses - nicknamed ‘naked ladies’ - are a happy addition to the shortening days with their lilac-pink, goblet-shaped, leafless flowers. They are said to have been first planted by the 12th-century monks of Dore Abbey and I love the way these crocuses have transcended generations. I wonder too if it was the monks who thought up the nickname. And did they think that someone, stomping across the Common in winter socks, shorts and carrying a raincoat might be enjoying the sight of them nearly a thousand years later?
After the installation of the solar panels on the new roof of the studio (which felt like a thousand years of waiting), like bulls in a China shop, we’ve added windows to the exterior back wall and exposed previously unseen views, bringing in north light and streaks of pocketed hillside into the bedroom window. The consequences of these decisions have been rather less beautiful than the newly created views. We have been forced to re-think the window framing as our wriggly tin isn’t playing ball at all and the entire back wall of the building has had to be re-levelled and straightened now that we’ve re-insulated. To add insult to injury, I’ve discovered a giant pile of timber sitting in the garden and I have absolutely no idea what it was ordered for. Seemingly undeterred, I’ve been routing the gable ends, turning them into something between a gingerbread house and somewhere I could imagine Hansel and Gretel being quite happy. My eyes are dry from the dust of cutting timber, but my patience is learning to be less tested by the unpredictable nature of renovating a tiny garden studio. I don’t doubt that dropped screws, lost to the undergrowth, will continue to turn up in archaeological post mortems for at least another thousand years.
The garden’s renaissance this month has made my heart burst – the flowering fennel, sculpted and poised, stands overhanging the leafy wormwood – that pongy insect deterrent – and the bursts of coreopsis with their burnt orange and toasted reds poke themselves in and about the now-growing cabbage leaves. There is a lushness that we haven’t seen since spring and, even though the birds have barely laid a beak on the blackberries this year, they have been revelling in the coolness and abundance of the past few weeks.
In spite of the shorter days, I’m not yet ready to step inside – there’s too much going on to pull me to the fireside just yet. Indeed, my school report for work inside on the house this month would say something like ‘could have tried harder’. But, I’ve also been lost in the world of Bruce Chatwin’s novel On the Black Hill, chronicling the imagined lives of twins in Radnorshire at the turn of the 20th century, set just a few hills away. Its stories about wars, mechanisation, changing landscapes, family feuds and the gradual rearranging of who belonged where have kept me thinking about how much this landscape has seen. I can’t help but wonder what sort of AI creature these hills, valleys and crocuses will be watching, stomping about the place in another thousand years – and whether it will be suitably dressed for the weather.
