Is It Autumn Yet?

This week, I plan my rose garden and declare autumn officially open with a beef casserole. Who cares if it’s still 27C?

Is It Autumn Yet Beef Casserole?

One of the great delights of moving in to this forgotten house on the water wasn’t immediately obvious. The day before the enormous pantechnicon arrived from England containing our lives, we had to hack a path through the bamboo forest that filled the front garden so the removal men would be able to carry our furniture up to the front door. I don’t know when I have ever felt more intrepid, garden saw in one hand, fury in my heart at whoever thought selling bamboo to civilians in garden centres was anything other than the business plan of a psychopath.

Before: the unenchanted forest. Glimpse of the uterus pool to the right, may it rest in pieces.

It took weeks and, in the end, inevitably, bags of money and a man with a digger to eliminate the bamboo. Next on the What Were They Thinking? checklist came the dipping pool which, once you saw it resembled the shape of a uterus, you could never unsee it. A total hysterectomy was required. No anaesthetic, but again lots of cash. One afternoon, on a whim, we cleared out a couple of the pittosporum which had grown as large as trees. It gave the olive tree more space and opened up the view of the port.

Now we could see what we had, which was a larger garden than I had at first thought. I began planning, on paper, then with the help of a rotavator, on the actual ground, my very own bit of French soil. We made a path out of oyster shells, put up a pergola and a rose arch, and put out a table and chairs. We planted lots of perennials, grasses and herbs. Bees and butterflies came, and my favourite little hummingbird moths darted in and out of the sage.

I’m now at that rather lovely stage of thinking about roses and bulbs to order for planting over winter. Roses are, of course, impossible as I want (almost) all of them. Bulbs too, quite honestly. Gloire de Dijon, Adélaide d’Orléans, Félicité et Pérpétue, Duchesse de Brabant, Queen of Night, Aphrodite, Pheasant’s Eye… plant catalogues are poetry to me.

The oyster shell path, coming along.

I guess this means it is autumn? Even though it’s still warm, I’m ready for a light cashmere sweater and a scarf. I am ready for shoes, possibly a jacket. I’m ready for something with pockets to lose plant labels in and to hold useless bits of twine.

Bay and thyme from the garden.

And in the kitchen, I’m ready for casseroles. Don’t get me wrong, I love a salad. I eat salad every day. Some of my best friends are salads. But when the calendar tips over into September, no matter what the thermometer says, I want to brown things on all sides, cook them slowly in a low oven, I want to braise and flambé, simmer until tender, I want to forget ‘serve immediately’ and cleave to ‘even better if made the day before’. I hope you’ll join me.

Is It Autumn Yet Beef Casserole?

Of course, you can make this with the more obvious pork if you prefer, but I love beef cheeks. I like to think their intense collagen-y-ness will save me money on a day at the spa. Plus, I hate spas. I don’t even like the seemingly compulsory head massage at the hairdresser’s. What a faff. Just get on with it. I have gardening to do.