soup weather returns

2026 · 09

Rained properly for the first time in weeks. I walked back from the market with cold hands and a bag full of root veg, already thinking about soup before I'd got the door open. The year turns and the cooking turns with it.

I like how much of a loop it is. Every autumn I drop back into the same thing, big pot on the stove on a Sunday, something soft and orange, enough to see us through a couple of dinners. I don't get the recipe out anymore. That's fairly new. A couple of years ago I'd have had it all weighed out.

The market's swung over to the autumn stuff. The flower stall's gone from armfuls of cut things to little pots of the hardier sort, and the veg is all the heavy keep-somewhere-cool kind now. Bought far too much squash out of pure enthusiasm.

The walk's coming into its best stretch too. The path by the water was quiet and grey and smelled of wet leaves, and the heron was on its usual rock looking as put out by the rain as the rest of us. First soup of the season went down well. M. asked for it again the next night.