Sorbus light

Absolutely gorgeous start to the day weather-wise, which was quite a surprise after the doom-and-gloom of the forecast. Still, blue sky, bright sun. The perfect day for finally picking those rowan berries to crack on with the 2013 Rowanberry Wine production (my favourite ‘country wine’ by the way.) Previous years the berries have been stripped as early as the end of August (I missed the 2011 vintage), but the mild autumn and super-abundance of hedgerow berries this year has left our trees intact. No sign of any fieldfare or redwing irruption yet [look it up – not misspelling of eruption!], which has also contributed. Loads of Mistle Thrush around at the moment, with their fantastic football-rattle calls, and they seem to be having a good-old hooley with the jays. Punch-up over the acorns perhaps?

Finally managed to fix the guy-wires securing our recently-installed wood burning stove flue to the barge boards on the roof in the morning. Some dare-devil aerial work up various ladders (neighbour’s comment – “that looks lethal….”), but all perfectly safe. Also some unexpected ‘employment’ at said neighbour’s, which earnt a few beer tokens…..