The feeling of borrowed time becomes more acute from day to day rather than week to week as the poplars at the bottom of the slope become less leaf and more twig and one season rubs up against the next.  We begin to keep an eye on the weather to eke out the last days without a frost and bring the tender perennials to the halfway house under the veranda, so that when the temperature finally plummets it is a swift move to bring them inside.

In the garden the flowers are also waning. The last asters finally smudged by wet weather and with their autumnal mission accomplished. But the shrubby salvias are far from diminished, with a new round of growth and flower after the recent rains and mild weather. This push is welcome, their tiny flowers delivering pinpricks of colour that never overwhelm for being smattered, as in a Pointillist painting. They love the conditions here, with plenty of sunshine and free-draining soils, and have proved their worth over the years, surviving both winter deluge and summer drought.