It’s a new tradition in our family to celebrate the start of Autumn with friends and relations by holding a ‘pie day’. When my mum was a little girl a local chapel used to hold a meat and potato pie supper at around this time of year and our pie day is a nod to this, also the old festival of Michaelmas and customs surrounding the Autumn Equinox. This year I combined pie day with the ‘official opening’ of our new shed on the allotment.

My mum made a chicken and ham pie and a blackberry and apple pie and I made cheese and mushroom pasties and a treacle pie. I served up the savoury pies with vegetables from the allotment and the sweet pies were accompanied with cream or custard (or both), yum! Some leaves picked up on recent walks and hops from a friend’s garden brightened up the house.

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The shed was opened with due ceremony – the cutting of a ribbon and the drinking of a toast! There’s still a bit of work to do on the shed, some hooks to hang, curtains to make and a few more slabs to lay, but it is a dry and cosy place to retreat.

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Today was just the start of our Autumn festivities