WALK anywhere in Hoolet, or in the nearby woods, and reminders of Keats’s ode To Autumn leap out on every side. His season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is more apt than ever this year, as trees and bushes sag under the weight of fruit and berries, and the early morning hills are cloaked in cloud. Mist clings to the valley floor, as if a steam train has recently whistled by, but behind the veil a brightness is lurking, ready to emerge in time for elevenses.

Ambling towards the stables last week, to check on the foals, I noticed the hedgerow was hung with rosehips so invitingly fat I was transported to childhood. Back then, rosehip syrup was a convenient way to pack winter kids with vitamin C, and in so doing quite possibly give them an incurable sweet tooth. That, at least, was what happened to me.

Meagre by comparison were the remnant of blackberries clinging on well past their time, and so wizened and unappetising that even dog walkers, who are usually first in the foraging queue, had left them untouched. But what nature removes with one hand, it replaces with the other. A passing friend, exercising his indefatigable hound, pointed us towards blackthorns laden with sloes.

I’m tempted to experiment with sloe gin, if only to add a bit more zing to a drink whose flavour, to my mind, is always disappointingly drowned by tonic. The subtlety of the myriad craft gins now available is largely lost on me, tempting though they look on the shelf. I had one recently that changed colour as I drank, which was novel. But if blindfolded, I couldn’t have told it from a supermarket brand. Perhaps my tastebuds have been blunted by too much chianti.

Closer to home, Keats makes his presence felt in the back garden, and not in a good way. The ancient crab apple tree is so bowed down, I worry it’ll uproot itself in a gale. The fruit is a rich golden colour, the size of cherries. We’ve propped up the heaviest branch, as if it were the Fortingall Yew, but I can tell the day is fast approaching when I need to dust off the recipe book, take down the jeely pan hanging in the summerhouse, and set to filling the larder.

There are thousands of crab apples on it, so many that any passerby in the field is invited to come and take their pick. No one has yet accepted the offer, and most have admitted they wouldn’t have a clue what to do with them.

The recipe book, which I won in a raffle, is good for chutneys and preserves, but when it comes to crab apple jelly, I hesitate. In fact, any jelly seems like a faff too far. This will astonish a Glasgow friend who was enthusing about the bramble and apple jelly he had recently made, while consigning his wife to chutney duty.

It was always my dad who made chutney when I was young. He would stir the same pan as I now own with a long-handled wooden spoon while sitting on the step ladders, swathed in vinegary steam and listening to the football results.

With the exception of puddings, Alan is the cook in our house. But even he is a little alarmed at the quantity of crab apples demanding attention. A friend has suggested I make a sauce out of them, rather than go through the palaver of straining them in a muslin sieve suspended overnight between chairs, or whatever you have to do. The jelly maker who scolded me for insinuating that only in the countryside can wayfarers find free fruit must have reserves of patience I had hitherto overlooked.

And then there is the apple tree, whose name I still don’t know. For the past few weeks it has been scattering small apples all around as if they were wedding favours. Several branches are trailing beneath their burden, almost touching the grass. If the mice and squirrels hereabouts were keen on fruit, they could pluck one in a paw as they sauntered past. Some of these eating-apples are rosy red, especially near the canopy, which is in full sun, but rather too many look more soor ploom than pippin.

The difficulty in giving away any of this fruit is a sign of how much of it is around. Neighbours have been proffering their own surplus apples, plums and tomatoes, but there is a limit to people’s capacity to stew, preserve and pickle, and even if their energy is unflagging, cupboards and freezers can only hold so much.

Without the usual village fetes and charity coffee mornings to provide with jams and chutneys, bags are left on the street with labels inviting folk to help themselves. When these go untouched, it is not for fear of Covid contagion but because of a plenitude on every side.

My parents had two mature apple trees, one of which – a Bramley – produced fruit too large for one hand. Over the years, autumn became a time of mild anxiety over how to find a home for it all. They filled a sideboard in the garage, layer upon layer of waxy green apples separated by corrugated cardboard. The scent all winter was delicious, but this barely made a dent in the pickings.

When Alan first visited a friend with an olive grove and rambling garden in Tuscany, she told him and the family to take their pick of the quinces and peaches on the trees (the olives all went to the communal press). He thought this was exceptionally generous; now he understands the desperation that sets in if you don’t want to see good food going to waste.

With that in mind, the next few weeks will be devoted to desserts: apple crumbles and pies, purees and compotes, and tart crab-apple sauce for Alan’s sausages and lamb chops. Thereafter it’s over to him to deliver chutney. I can tell he’s apprehensive.

The only time we ever attempted it, years ago, we bought attractive retro-looking containers, and spent a Saturday afternoon feeling rustic and self-sufficient. We gave one pot away, and put the other two into a dark cupboard. A few weeks later, a loud bang came from the kitchen. On investigating, we found that both jars had exploded.