Mabon Slow Living Tips

The return of my newsletter after its Summer maternity leave! 🍂🍁

A huge welcome back to my newsletter, Sow, Grow, Harvest, Rest, and happy Autumn Equinox! Thanks for sticking with me while I was away. My wee boy Laurie was born at the start of Summer shortly before Litha, the Summer Solstice, and it feels an apt time to return as Summer draws to a close and we usher in a new season with Mabon.

I’ve missed writing to you these last few months and hope you enjoyed a slow Summer (or Winter if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere!). I look forward to sharing my seasonal and slow living ideas with you once more on the last Sunday of each month in this newsletter. Do let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see here!

In addition, I’m unpausing and relaunching my paid community today with a special offer to celebrate Mabon, which marks two years since I started my paid tier and nearly three since I launched my Substack. Until midnight on 24th Sept (so just over 48 hours!) you can get 20% off if you sign up to the paid community! Here’s a flavour of what’s in store over there:

• Rosie Makes: step by step seasonal crafts and delicious recipes.

• The Creative Life: a look behind the scenes of writing a book and the publishing industry.

• Sow, Grow, Harvest, Rest book group: what I’m reading throughout the seasons and book discussions together.

• Scottish Slow Living: my favourite gardens, nature spots and other places to visit through the seasons, local creatives who share my ethos.

• Slow Home Updates: seasonal decorating, renovating, and simple styling.

All for less per month than the price of a coffee and cake at your favourite café. Click below to sign up:

Now onto this month’s slow living tips for Mabon. Change is in the air! The Equinox marks the time where night and day are of roughly equal length. It feels like the official start of Autumn to me, although in the Celtic Wheel it’s actually the second of the harvest festivals. After a brief second Summer, here in Scotland it already feels like the new season is underway: I’m reaching for my knitwear, find myself craving hot chocolate, and soup season has started in earnest in my kitchen. Here are a few things I’ll be doing throughout this six week period between Mabon and Samhain, the start of Celtic Winter.

Visit an Orchard:

The apple is regarded as a symbol of Mabon, and apple picking is a lovely celebratory activity at this time of year with the tradition of community gatherings and feasts dating back centuries. Maybe I’m biased as we had a pre-ceremony picnic in the orchard at Ballintaggart when we eloped to Highland Perthshire, but orchards are such magical places. Not only are they a sensory treat with the scent of ripening fruit and the beautiful contrasting colours, but I love the way that orchards can remind us of the harvest bounty that can grow from the potential of Spring’s blossom. Community orchards are experiencing a resurgence, even in cities - if you’re in Edinburgh there’s one hidden in the Astley Ainslie Hospital in the South of the city; we found it at the very end of the season last year but I’d love to have a picnic beneath the apples with baby L this year! If you can’t find an orchard then seek out interesting varieties at your local farmers’ market and make something special with them. I’ll pop an apple recipe on Instagram soon!

Final Flowers:

The flower growing season is drawing to a close (though of course you know I enjoy arranging natural elements at all times of year, and the hardier Winter blooms!) and what a way to end. This is my favourite time of year for flowers: as late Summer meets early Autumn varieties, I love how nature’s colour palette edges towards the autumnal with dusky pink, rusty red, deep burgundy and ochre yellow. There are still many flowers in season that can be enjoyed before the first frosts, particularly my favourite dahlias. They featured in my wedding bouquet (pictured above!) with chocolate cosmos, sweetpeas, rudbeckia, and dusky pink roses among others, alongside natural foraged elements such as rosebips, elder and brambles. It was made by the talented Marion Blythe Sandwith of Ochre Botanical Studios (make sure you’re signed up to their gorgeous flowery newsletter!). It really was a dream bouquet and I was very lucky to be treated to some more blooms from Ochre for my anniversary this year that were reminiscent of my bouquet. Use Flowers from the Farm to find your local growers and support them as the season ends.

Nesting:

It’s officially the time of year for blankets, throws and candles and I, for one, am delighted by the prospect of cosy season. I know that not everyone is though, and I appreciate the darkening days can take their toll. It’s a cliché but I think that dressing a cosy corner or two (or three…) can make a safe space to retreat to and help you to embrace rather than resist the dark. This is your permission slip, if you need one, to buy that candle, to finish making that throw, to get the fairy lights out of the Christmas box early. Finding joy in any small ways we can is even more vital as the days get darker. In my book, ‘Slow Seasons’ (which you can order here), there’s a project for making your own soy wax candles and they are something I always love to make at this time of year and throughout the season in the run-up to Yule for gifting!

Crafternoon

Autumn officially means crafting season to me - although I love to make things all year round, there’s something special about the slower pace of these days later in the year, and usually more time at home, that means you can really get into that flow state I find. For my birthday this month I was kindly given an online course by the decorative artist Tess Newall and I am learning how to decorate objects with folk style patterns. I’ve got some lamps to upcycle with leftover paint from renovating and now I’m getting the hang of it nothing is safe from a floral pattern in this house! I’m also planning on making an Autumn leaf garland with beeswax preserved leaves now that the colours are changing, and will share the step by step in my subscriber community. Which Autumn crafts will you be making?

Foraged Bakes:

The hedgerow is ripe with nature’s bounty as Summer turns into Autumn. A walk outside is extra special during this transitional time and I find taking my basket on country walks and looking out for ripe berries makes me pay extra special attention to what’s in front of me. Blackberries are my favourite and there’s a whole section on their folklore in my book, plus three recipes - though there were more I’d have loved to have included, including this one for blackberry and cardamom buns below.

To make them, you will need:

250g plain flour
150ml milk
7g fast action yeast sachet
40g butter
25g caster sugar
1tsp cardamom
For the filling:
60g soft brown sugar
60g butter
40g blackberries, chopped
1 tsp cardamom
For the topping:
50g icing sugar
Two more blackberries.

Melt the butter and milk together and allow to cool to body temperature. Add the yeast and set aside for a few minutes - it will start to froth a little. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and knead until the mixture forms a dough, then continue to knead for another 10 minutes until smooth. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size.

Preheat the oven to 180C Fan. Cream the butter, cardamom and sugar in a bowl. Roll the dough out to approx 15 x 20 cm. Spread the filling evenly over the surface of the dough and add the chopped blackberries, pressing them in lightly. Roll the dough into a sausage and cut into rounds approx two centimetre thick. Space out evenly on two lined baking trays.

Cover and leave to rise again for around thirty minutes. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool a little before brushing with warmed golden syrup for shine. Make a glaze from 50g icing sugar mixed with the juice of a blackberry or two until you have a dropping consistency. Drizzle over the surface of the buns and serve.

I hope you make them! Share a pic and tag me here or on Instagram if you do.

I’d be delighted if you joined me in my subscriber community, and if you enjoyed this free newsletter please share it to help me spread the word!

Lastly, to celebrate Mabon, my publisher Bloomsbury is also running a giveaway over on Instagram to win a signed copy of ‘Slow Seasons’.

Thank you and see you next month xxx