Gathering in the harvest

The priest, author and ecological thinker on his deep love for the countryside

- PETER OWEN JONES

It is something ingrained, I think, learned over the years. For those of us living on this windswept island in the northeast Atlantic, October is the time to prepare for the winter months that lie ahead, to make ready. I remember my mother laying down apples on racks in a tumbledown shed at the back of the garden. We’d gather them, green and gleaming, in buckets and then on a February morning the wrinkle-skinned fruits would appear, having lost much of their original vigour. Now I tramp the woods collecting bags of kindling before the canopy loses its leaves and the autumn skies render everything damp, but under one tree there is treasure.