Notes from the weekend

A Physalis, or Chinese Lantern, bought from a little greengrocer's shop in Hebden Bridge. I love these plants - they always remind me of Halloween. The stems look great dried out too, displayed in a vase. I suspect I'll have to wait for my plant to grow for a year or two first as it's only little. So it's currently residing outside on the windowsill where it can be admired both from without and within.

Speaking of drying flowers: the hydrangea heads are well on their way, along with some Eucalyptus. The faded mauve blossoms go nicely with the silvery blue-green of the foliage stems.

A very small pomegranate. I'm looking forward to buying some bigger ones to eat. Preferably with juicy, ruby-red insides. Stained fingernails here we come.

Cute little gourds seem to be on display everywhere at the moment. One day I'll have a go at growing my own.

There are plenty of damsons, greengages and English apples about as well. This really is a wonderful time of year for food.

Whilst on the subject: a little trip to Katsouris, the delicatessen where I used to go with my mum and grandma. You know, before it was fashionable to enjoy the food eaten by European immigrants (a subject I'm planning to cover in a future Food Memories post). Sadly they no longer stock the little chocolate-covered katarzynki I ate as a child. But I did bag plenty of other goodies: Polish kabanos sausage, German smoked cheese, bagels, rye bread, sweet gherkins, stuffed vine leaves and pickled green chillies. Which were very hot indeed.

I snaffled some Polish cheesecake too, with a thick layer of poppyseeds inside. And - I promise this completes the haul - a bag of Brazil nut toffee from the sweet stall on the market. I used to love chewing on it and it turns out nothing's changed on that score.

In other news, we picked up a nice old pine chest of drawers for the 'family room'. It has castors on the feet, brass handles and a few knocks and scratches a bit of character. I wanted to photograph it but at this time of day the sun's moved around to the front of the house and I didn't want fuzzy pictures.

We're going for an autumnal stroll later. Hopefully we'll find plenty of conkers and some elderberries too.

I hope you're enjoying the weekend and savouring these last few precious hours of it...