Step into the meadow on a still September evening, the light clear and tinged with pink, air cooling fast, the sun seeming to balance softly for a moment on the top of Park Hill.
The flowers are all gently going to seed.
Yarrow stalks turning deep scarlet, their once bright white flowers taking on metallic browns and silvers. Cat's-ears with their buff-feathered seed-clocks count down the hours, awaiting passing feet or a puff of air to send them floating to new bare ground.
Some wiry Harebells still wear their heavenly blues, but most are hung now with exquisitely tooled bell-shaped seedpods. The Bedstraw has lost its bright acid-yellows and is darkening to black, and the delicate Sheep Sorrel has turned to a dry rusty brown.
Marsh Thistles stand tall and gaunt now, their deep purple flowers, so attractive to moths and butterflies, are now part-exploded cottony clusters of fine downy seeds.
Bird’s Foot Trefoil has stepped out with countless clawed ‘feet’ seedpods. They are polished brown, like mahogany or sandalwood. By the fence, stems of Tufted Vetch hang with miniature green purses of tiny seed-coins.
And the raggedy blonde heads of the bleached meadow grasses, the Bents and the Fescues, shimmer, sway and rustle faintly in the last soft-blazing rays of the sun.
