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First published 2025 by: Bustle & Sew Station House West Cranmore Shepton Mallet BA4 4QP
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WelcometotheOctoberMagazine
It’s really autumn now here in Somerset. The leaves are falling from our horse chestnut trees and every now and then I hear a dull “clunk” which tells me that a conker has landed on the roof of our logs store. A log store which, I might add, is now full of freshly split logs ready for the colder weather to come.
This month’s magazine has an autumnal feel, with apples, pumpkins, autumn leaves and much more inside. I am particularly pleased to include my “Bear in a Hat” embroidery as October’s vintae pattern - how can he be nine years old already?! I also especially enjoyed researching the life of Louisa Pesel. She was a most remarkable woman, though I hadn’t actually heard of her until I read (and enjoyed) Tracy Chevalier’s novel “A Single Thread” in which she makes a brief appearance.
I do hope you’ll enjoy this issue and the November edition will be published on Thursday 30 October, in four weeks time. Until then…
Very best wishes
As we move from September into October, there’s usually a marked drop in temperatures as well as ever-shortening days. The first frosts kill off many adult insects and the birds dependent upon them for food will have to move southwards for the winter. Many of the birds that remain are fruit and seed eaters. Blackbirds and thrushes, together with the finches gorge upon the autumn berries and seeds to build up reserves to carry them through the winter months when food is hard to find. With excited calls they descend on bushes and hedgerows in large flocks, stripping them of their colourful fruits and moving north-east to south-west down the country as winter progresses.
October usually brings us plenty of sunny days, indeed there is a saying
October
change colour slowly as winter draws nearer. Some years the autumn colours are vibrant and strong - almost dazzling in the autumn sunlight, whilst in other years they are soft and subdued, fading gently from green to gold, orange, ochre and crimson. The evenings draw in, and between the last of the pale sunlit days come the first really cold ones.
The fluffy grey seed heads of old man’s beard or wild clematis covers the hedgerows and autumn fungi thrive on the damp ground amongst the falling leaves. But even now, if you look closely, there are hints of spring; the leaves of next year’s primroses are emerging from the ground and the cow parsley shoots are just visible.
There is an old country belief that if
way. “October with green leaves means a severe winter”, so they say. The families of hedgehogs rummaging along the base of the hedge are certainly taking no chances as they forage for beetles and worms and the slugs that seem so numerous on damp autumn days. A cold snap may well send well-grown individuals to their winter hideouts by the end of the month, but with the tendency to milder autumns across the UK, many won’t begin to hibernate until almost Christmas.
As gardeners will be well aware, October is a time for tidying up. Lawns and grassy areas need their final cut before the frosts and lack of daylight halt their growth. The spent heads and stalks of Michaelmas daisies and sunflowers are sinking back into their beds and the last
October arrives in a swirl of fragrant blue leaf smoke, the sweetness of slightly frosted MacIntosh apples, and little hard acorns falling. We are in the midst of cool crisp days, purple mists, and Nature recklessly tossing her whole palette of dazzling tones through fields and woodlands.
Jean Hersey (1902- 1997)
Rose Fyleman
Rose Fyleman (1877-1957) wrote the poem “I think mice are rather nice” from which the verses on the Mice are Nice project were taken.
Rose was born in Nottingham, the daughter of John Feilmann and Emilie. Her father’s family came originally from Germany where they were involved in in the lace trade. As a child, Rose showed early literary promise and by the age of nine she had already published a small composition in a local paper.
Rose attended University College, but she didn’t finish her course but instead began seriously to study music, training to be a singer in Paris, Berlin, and also the Royal College of Music in London. She made her debut in a Promenade Concert at Queen’s Hall, London, in August 1903, billed as Fraulien Rose Feilmann of Berlin!
John Feilmann died around this time and the family moved to another property where Rose’s elder sister Gertrude ran a private school and where Rose taught music, whilst still appearing for several years on the concert platform. When the First World War began, many Germans who were British subjects felt insecure and changed their names, and so the Feilmanns became Fylemans.
Interestingly, Rose didn’t begin her serious literary career until she was around 40. In May 1917 she submitted a poem titled “There are Fairies at the Bottom
of Our Garden” to Punch magazine, and it was accepted and published. The popularity of that poem opened the door for further publishing opportunities, and she soon collected more of her fairy-themed verses into book form.
One of her best-known collections is Fairies and Chimneys (1918), which was reprinted many times over the years.
Her poems often depict a gentle, benign fairy realm— free of the darker, malevolent elements sometimes encountered in traditional folklore. As one literary commentator put it,
In the late 1920’s Rose moved to London where she wrote plays, educational material for children, as well as more fiction and poems. By the middle of the century however, her works were considered somewhat oldfashioned in literary trends—especially as children’s literature evolved. Even so, her poems and stories have a certain nostalgic and imaginative charm for many readers.
She died in 1957 and is buried in Golders Green Cemetery in London.
TheTeasel
Autumn bounty for wildlife with a long history in the textile industry, the teasel is a plant of many uses!
E A Bowles, My Garden in Summer, 1914
Teasels are hugely beneficial to wildlife, attracting a variety of insects, including bees and butterflies, with their flowers, while their seed heads provide a valuable food source for birds, particularly goldfinches, in the autumn and winter. Additionally, the prickly structure of the plant can offer shelter for insects and small mammals.
The genus name is derived from the ancient Greek word for ‘thirst of water’ and it refers to the cup-like look. The pair of large bright green leaves at the base of the stem form a collection point for rain water, giving the plant the names of ‘Venus’s bath’ and ‘our lady’s bath’. The name Teasel is primarily associated with its use during the nineteenth century within textile mills, where the dried heads were used to comb or tease wool before spinning.
In its first year, teasel grows from seed to form a rosette of foliage. In the second year it produces flowering stems which grow up to six feet tall. Between July and August, when teasels are in flower, the spiky flower heads are mostly green with rings of purple flowers, borne on the ends of tall, open, branching stems that are also clothed with prickles. They prefer to grow in damp grassland and field edges, or on disturbed ground, such as roadside verges and waste grounds. Despite its prickliness, teasel is not related to thistle.
After flowering, teasel heads turn brown and dry and will retain their structure through winter. They look beautiful
when silvered with frost or strung with spider webs on misty mornings. Teasel flowers are a magnet for bees, butterflies, and other insects, then masses of tiny seeds are beloved by seed-eating birds, especially goldfinches.
The leaves and plant structure are designed to funnel and hold rainwater for up to several days and provide a useful micro-supply of water for wildlife, though they must be careful not to fall in as it’s hard for them to escape and the pool of water soon accumulates drowned hoverflies, wasps and sometimes bumblebees, which visited to drink.
In the words of the sixteenth-century herbalist John Gerard the teasel’s leaves are
“so fastened, that they hold dew and raine water in the manner of a little bason”.
or Fuller’s Teasel is a cultivated form of wild teasel occasionally found as an escape from cultivation or as a bird-seed alien on waste ground, railway sidings and tips. It was formerly cultivated for use in raising the nap of woollen cloth after fulling and is still grown for that purpose on the Somerset Levels where the heads are collected and sold to independent traditional textiles producers. The shape of the head and straight spines distinguish it from wild teasel.
“Long ladders leaning into the apple trees of early October - what a pleasing sight in the countryside! How good to fill those baskets in the grass while the whole orchard winks with the wings of late butterflies, and spider-spin shines in wheel after wheel among the last flowers of autumn. Now the ladders are taken away, the sound fruit harvested with the windfalls, those eternal worries, sometimes left to fertilise the orchard floor, sometimes heaped at a penny a pound in boxes by the gate…”
Taken from the BBC Book of the Countryside” a anthology from a group of contributors including C Gordon Glover who wrote the paragraph above. Published in 1963.
Though English apples have been available since August, the main apple harvest takes place this month in orchards across the country. Here in Somerset where I live, apples are primarily grown to make cider as the climate and soil are just right for these varieties. Along the lane to the village many houses have boxes outside
full of windfalls which, if you’re prepared to take time and trouble over them, can be peeled, cored and sliced, then frozen to use in delicious apple pies, puddings and crumbles during the colder months. Watch out for any sleepy wasps though!
Did you know (I didn’t!) That the apple, or is a member of the rose family? It is related closely not only to pears and quinces (also in season at this time of year) but also plums, blackberries and even strawberries. Everything from the apple blossom to the fallen fruit can be used in cooking, making apples a hardy, versatile and delicious essential in the kitchen. Smoking apple wood on the barbecue will impart a subtle sweet and fruity flavour to meat, fish and vegetables.
Although apples take centre stage, this month is a great time in the kitchen since, as well as the new season orchard fruits and the beginning of the autumn root vegetable harvest, there are suqashes and pumpkins, and still some courgettes, beans and other late summer crops to enjoy.
Parsnipand AppleSoup
Ingredients
● 25g butter
● 1 tbsp sunflower oil
● 2 medium onions, chopped
● 600g parsnips, cut into 2cm pieces
● 2 garlic cloves, crushed
● 600g Bramley apples, peeled, quartered and cut into chunks
● 1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
● 150ml milk
● flaked sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
● Method
● Melt the butter and oil in a large saucepan. Gently fry the onions and parsnips for 15 minutes, or until the onions are softened. Add the garlic and apples and cook for a further two minutes, stirring regularly.
● Pour over the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes, or until the parsnips are very soft. Remove from the heat and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Blend the mixture in a food processor until smooth.
● Stir in the milk, adding a little extra if required. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Add a little curry powder to the fried onions and parsnips before stirring in the stock for a delicious twist.
