Our house looks as though we're preparing a harvest festival show. Most of this beauty and colour comes from Hester and Dan's garden which is overflowing with wonderful produce.

The hot little peppers are drying in the kitchen. I'm already planning spicy meals for this winter.

We have more apples than we know what to do with this year. Our apple, peach and pear trees are very old and during the last 11 years have never given us any fruit worth discussing - until now.

I've made compote and apple cakes and I'll soon be making chutney. Any left over will be given to the horses.

Sophie, who helps Hugh in the pottery now, had a good idea. Why not dry some apple rings in the kiln after it has cooled from a firing? 

Hugh cut some hazel twigs and Sophie did the rest. She supported the rows of threaded slices on kiln props.

The drying took about 36 hours and the results were delicious: crispy and intensely flavoured. A good way to use free heat!

The apple rings have been bagged up and stored on top of a kitchen cupboard.

A pêche de vigne (bush peach) is not exactly a thing of beauty but, since our tree made an enormous effort this year, I am the last to complain. Their flavour is much more interesting than the taste of shop bought peaches. But again, I had far too many for our needs - and they don't keep for long. They are good very lightly stewed with a touch of honey and this freezes well.

I peeled and stoned the last of them - look at that beautiful crimson centre, the peach's secret.

I stuffed them with hazlenuts mixed with honey, sprinkled over some elderflower cordial and baked them.

We won't forget this wonderful year of the peach and the apple.

Roses are blooming everywhere in our village. Some are fine and special, like this one -

- others are as simple as our rose ancienne whose name I don't know. Here it is said that the Crusaders brought this deeply perfumed flower back with them from the Holy Lands.

The rose that grows by our front door is almost as old as the house itself. I've seen a 100 year old photograph of a family standing in the road (there was even less traffic than today) with the same bush behind them.

It peeps in at the sitting room window and prevents us closing the shutters in summer.

I'm very fond of this tiny shell-pink rose which forms part of the garden hedge.

In every garden roses spill over walls and drop their petals on the narrow lanes which cross-cross the village.

How amazing it is that these fragile flowers become cherries in so short a time.

Parts of our garden look rather like a jungle at present.

Hiding behind the courgette plant is a whopping pumpkin vine which now measures 8 metres (26 feet). We've been watching it marching across the lawn for weeks, using its strength to produce one big potiron, as well as all those leaves.

Last autumn we were given gifts of pumpkins by neighbours. I'm rather hoping they won't be quite so generous this year!

Our ancient peach tree (called pêche des vignes) never gives more than 10 or so fruits on our side of the wall but this year we counted over 100. We've taken some out to allow the rest a chance to grow big enough. There's still no sign of them ripening. They are hard as stones - but velvety and tinged with pink.

You may remember that we created a herb garden in a small raised bed a while ago. The wooden retaining slats were replaced with ancient hand-made La Borne bricks and the plants thrived.

I've already made two batches of pesto and it looks as though I'll be hard at work with the pestle and mortar again soon. The dark leaves are purple basil, next to the green variety.

That's my kind of cooking!

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... till may is out. Well, the may trees are in blossom but I'm not casting any clouts until the weather warms up.

All the tiny wild flowers are hidden by long grass now and thousands of dandelions have turned to clocks - this is a Parisian neighbour's lawn. He'll have his work cut out when he comes next to La Borne!

A dandelion clock makes a snug hiding place for the Trichodes avearius, easier to spot on a buttercup. The common name of this beautiful creature is the Chequered Beetle.

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After a light fall of snow, I went out to feed the birds. The two blackbirds, whose territory includes our garden, are never far away. And Marley the cat has his habitual path to and from the back door.

Marley is no threat to garden birds: too slow and, let's admit it, a bit too lazy.

So, we live side by side - but not all at the same time.

We know that summer is over when our friendly neighbouring farmer calls with gifts of pumpkins. These four weigh in total 30 kgs -that's 66 lbs! The largest orange one is a magnificent 15 kgs - about 33 lbs. I'm not sure yet how I will manage to deal with all this autumn goodness. I'll probably give away at least half. Meanwhile, I'll look up unusual recipes for pies, cakes, chutneys, roasted dishes ...

Marley is taking the very last of his garden naps among the fallen silver birch leaves and the abandoned garden furniture. He has completely lost his voice, hasn't spoken for over a fortnight. We have to lip-read his requests.

You should move indoors, Marley, where we've prepared a cosy bed with a new blanket for you. Much better for that sore throat than lying on bare ground. But you know best.

We've started lighting a fire in the evening. The well-seasoned logs and kindling are stacked by the back door.

Here's what I found when we were tidying the garden: a sort of cocoon made by a spider to hold her hundreds of eggs all winter. The babies are called spiderlings. I placed the trowel inside an empty flower pot where it will be safe from predators.

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A pair of redstarts have built their nest on top of the nesting box we installed last year on a wall of the garden room. Three babies are keeping their parents busy and anxious. The redstart's call is very sharp and rapid; whenever we pass the nest, where we can hear high-pitched cheeping, the adults call 'danger!' to each other from the surrounding fruit trees.

We didn't want to increase their anxiety. Hugh took this picture of the fledglings from a distance, hence the quality of the photograph.

My picture below shows how they have changed in about ten days. I don't know how all three are managing to squeeze together now they're so large.

Here's how they'll look when they're grown. The mother bird is much paler in her summer feathers. As indicated in the text, redstarts' colouring varies considerably.

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