An ode to autumn

As the nights get longer, the approach of our favourite season brings with it warming drinks, bracing walks and hearty foods. Burning landscapes and tumultuous weather, roaring fires and whisky nightcaps. Discover our favourite ways to make the most of autumn.

Bracing walks

Perfectly crisp and bright days make this an ideal time of year for long bracing walks. With a couple of homemade flapjacks stuffed in our pockets and a flask of mulled wine, clambering around on the vivid moors is a favourite past time of ours from the early days of September.

If getting lost on the moor isn’t your thing and you prefer a more organised route, you can’t go wrong with National Trust routes, which are centred around properties they care for and pieces of land they maintain. Local favourites include Cotehele and Lansallos.

Heartier dishes & warming drinks

Stews, soups and pies. Slow-cooked tagines and weekend curries. Everything becomes more robust, flavours are punchier and ingredients heavier. Washed down with lashings of red wine and heady peaty whiskies by the fire.

Cooking becomes restorative, even mediative as everything slows right down and the cooler days call for warming nutritious dishes to starve off colds.

Seasonal ingredients

Autumn is always the most fruitful time of year for us amateur growers. An abundance of apples from our trees, plums, damsons and quinces give us plenty of fruit which we preserve as jams, apple sauce and chutneys.

From the patch, we have success with potatoes and onions, pumpkins and squashes and enormous courgettes that we often leave too long until they are the size of marrows.

Visible change

Out of all the seasons, autumn brings with it the most physical change. Big piles of orange, red and brown leaves gather on roads. Golden light bursting through clouds of spiralling pumpkin coloured leaves. Smoky indigo evenings that smell of bonfires and sharp blustery, unpredictable weather, set to the backdrop of flaming orange and pink sunsets, autumn days are vivid and visually exciting.