Today, on the 1st August, the City Daily Photo Bloggers theme is ‘Fruit.’ With blackberry season in full swing in the country lanes around Abingdon, I not only picked blackberries for a crumble but clicked blackberries to share. They are bitter-sweet. The initial delight can be followed by a creepy crawly.
To see how other bloggers around the world captured the essence of fruit, click here.
These bales of hay, stacked near the Tythe Farm estate in Abingdon, could be seen earlier in the month with the spire of St Helen’s Church in the distance.
Harvest Festivals are not as traditional looking as they used to be.
Canned fruit – not this year’s harvest of apples and pears – are more practical.
Last Sunday, St Helen’s Church, had their Harvest Festival. There were autumnal decorations round the church windows.
People also brought the harvest from local shops to be donated to the Abingdon Food Bank.
Abingdon Baptist church also had a Harvest service, with goods donated to the Abingdon Food Bank.
At Trinity, where I am a member, the Harvest will be this coming Sunday. Donations will go to the Asylum Welcome Food Cupboard in Oxford.
Last week’s church notices said … “The needs of refugees fleeing conflict and oppression and seeking asylum are as great as ever. Items specially needed are:- UHT milk; long-life fruit juice; tea and coffee; cooking oil; tins of vegetables, fruit, soup, fish, meat (preferably not pork); couscous; noodles; lentils; jam; honey; sugar; biscuits; crackers. As the Cupboard tends to receive much of its stock at Harvest, please see that items have a “use-by” date about six months on.”
The 23rd September is the Autumn Equinox – derived from the Latin words equus (equal) and nox (night). We are at a point where the long summer days are all but over, and the nights grow longer.
Churches celebrate the harvest at this time of year. At Trinity yesterday the suggested list of harvest offerings to be given to The Asylum Welcome Centre included: cooking oil, sugar, UHT milk, tea and coffee, long-life fruit juice, couscous, noodles, lentils, jam, honey, biscuits and tinned vegetables, fruit, soup, fish and meat (not pork) with best before date of 6 months.
The leaves are turning in the avenue of trees between The Chestnuts and Wick Hall.
In the fields between Mill Lane and the A34, the harvest is over, and a tractor is tilling the ground for the next crop.
However, the garden at St Ethelwolds are still looking bountiful with: strings of tomatoes …
apples …
a few late raspberries
and many late flowers.
The garden at St Ethelwolds this year have been open for people to discover – at all seasons.
Wild blackberries are abundant around Abingdon this year. People have been out collecting them with bags and plastic containers.
Beside the Sustrans cycle path, outer branches had been trampled down to create a path into the heart of one large mound of brambles, but the blackberries in the picture were just out of reach.