The freeze came hard this week to make ice on the troughs and suspend the water lilies in the pond. Light bounced brilliantly from the frozen surface and for the first time the landscape was united by white and glisten and a proper crunch underfoot. In the thaw, as the tawniness returned, the remains of the autumn colour came tumbling down from the branches to patter the stillness and accelerate this turn in the season.

The dahlias were instantly blackened where they had been eking out their last few days and the vulnerable nasturtiums melted to practically nothing. The profusion of foliage they always put on in the cool of the autumn extends their reach defiantly beyond the beds as if to say, ‘We are willing to keep going.’, but the full stop of freeze marks an abrupt end to their growing season. Under the wreckage and waiting for next year they leave their plentiful seed, plump and fleshy and easy gathering.