Saturday 31st August

Oliver Cromwell lay buried and dead, hee haw buried and dead

There grew an old apple tree over his head, hee haw over his head

The apples were ripe and ready to fall, hee haw ready to fall

An old woman came for to gather them all, hee haw gather them all

And so on. I can promise you that Oliver Cromwell is not buried under our apple tree, but the rest of this verse is true enough. 

Earlier in the day a shower of rose petals blew across the garden as the wind got up. A friend replied to a text saying it was stormy outside,  and raining acorns! Her garden backs onto a hedge of mature oaks.

When I looked out, our apple tree was surrounded by recent windfall apples. The apples this year are plentiful and enormous,  the biggest I've seen for many a year. I started collecting some, and saw our neighbours returning from a visit to the swimming pool with their little boy. 

'I need your help,' I called. They were amused to find it wasn't a real emergency, just an over-supply of apples.

In the end, they picked a bucketful to take home, and we took a bucketful for ourselves, and another bowl full for our neighbours on the other side.

I've already stewed three huge apples, and BB and I have eaten a more moderate sized one each, and I've still all these left. Plus the ones still on the tree.

I first heard the Oliver Cromwell song in the Benjamin Britten arrangement, rather than as a nursery rhyme song. At this speed it becomes a nearly impossible tongue twister!

I've carried on messing about with painting and drawing all through August, but it was a collaboration with my notebook swap friend so I've not been sharing any. 

But this is today's, not in the collaboration; it's a square of slightly inky water, and then random lines drawn with different fountain pens filled with different btands of royal blue or black ink. I find it rather intriguing. I wasn't aiming for anything in particular; I just wanted to fill a blank space.