In gloomy November days, sunshine is at a premium. To the north, mist shrouds Kit Hill’s summit stack, but eastwards occasional streaks of pinkish light reflect on Dartmoor’s faded expanses of purple moor grass.
In the dullness, muted autumnal colours are strangely luminous, contrasting with the continuing growth of greenery. Black Angus yearlings lie content and replete on their lush green pasture; the pedigree herd of pale brown South Devon cattle also remain out of doors, alternated between fields, one distinguished by an ancient free-standing oak and hedgerow beeches. Rooks and jackdaws flock about the almost leafless beech, ignored by two imperturbable buzzards perched on telephone posts, overlooking the brown earth of a cultivated field sown with winter barley.
Downhill, tracks that converge on the old corn mill in overgrown Radland Valley are filling up with leaves. Set among the upright fronds of buckler, male and hard ferns, the emerald mosses on tree trunks and stony banks, the accumulations of damp leaves catch a faint skylight, and seem to glimmer in the murky shade. In the more open situation of the heritage orchard belonging to my sister and brother-in-law, Mary and James, lichen is again obvious on the bare trees. Apart from those apples that have been picked, stored for reference, juiced for cider, preserved and gathered by friends and relatives, shoals of fallers subside into the ground. The latest varieties include large king byerd, yellow longkeeper, red king coffee and russeted Christmas pearmain, all part-nibbled, slimy from slug trails, gradually rotting and dragged by worms into the earth.
At home, the dry, mild weather allows limited cutting back of the prolific growth in our ever-wilder garden of spreading shrubs, sprawling fruit trees, swards and encroaching ferny woodland. Regularly pruned oaks planted by jays hold up strands of pink roses; the 45-year-old mulberry, lime and ginkgo all glow yellow, while the swamp cypress sheds orange needles. Fuchsia, Japanese anemone and day and river lilies that emerge through the underlying mats of ivy, violets and marjoram have been bitten off by visiting deer, and squirrels have stripped the dogwood of its hard unripened fruits.
Yet, ever hopeful, I anticipate the coming swaths of snowdrops and rows of once commercially grown narcissi on the steep slope.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
