Thank ewe for cheer in cold snap

A COLD snap put a very swift end to the Indian summer we enjoyed.

Temperatures dropped by 10 degrees, and as Milton wrote, foliage fell “thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa”.

I don’t know where that is, but I’ll never forget the lines from schooldays, learning chunks of Paradise Lost for my exams. I bet they don’t do that these days.

But, as usual, I digress. Walking over the fields to my allotment, the trees are turning yellow, russet, brown, and some with leaves speckled like soot.

Mr Mole has been busy again, earthing up soil on to the narrow path. A bootprint tells me someone has been here before.

On the skyline, Skipton Moor is dark brown, beyond, Embsay Moor is dark against the clouds, whilst beyond Skipton, the twin peaks of Flasby Fell – Sharp Haw, 1,171ft and Rough Haw, 1,112ft – are just about visible.

Leaves on the brambles are still green, but all the blackberries are shrivelled and dead. It was a poor season.

There is no water in the dip by the railway and no sign of the visiting heron. But the animal kingdom rarely disappoints.

I saw a sheep trying to climb a hawthorn tree – at least that’s what it looked like – and approaching the stone stile, it’s blocked by another sheep.

Is it stuck? Sheep are notorious for doing daft things and expiring on the spot.

There’s no way round. I have to go through, so I advance cautiously. If it’s a ram, it could get nasty, but it’s a ewe and she jumps down as I get close.

That’s all the entertainment for today. Will this still be sheep country when the New Zealand trade deal decimates our home industry?