"To Swell The Gourd"

I've been on a mission today. My granddaughter asked for a "long pumpkin" as she wants us to carve a cobra. One of those huge inedible marrows, such as find themselves at Harvest Festival, would have been ideal. I've had to settle for a slab-sided oval pumpkin. Nowhere round here sells lovely gourds like those koko has been posting. :(

On the way home from my quest at sunset the mist was settling in a meadow near my home. We all know the first line of Keats' Ode To Autumn. Having read the poem in its entirety lots of other lines chime with my experience today. "Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn among the river-sallows." They were much in evidence at Rye Meads Nature Reserve dancing in the sunlight. "The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft." Robins were quite vocal there too. "While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day and touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue." The day certainly died softly, wrapping the mellow fruitfulness in a blanket of mist.