Not Everything Ripens at the Same Time

On September mornings, changing seasons and learning to let things happen in their own time.

I was up at around seven this morning, which felt almost like a lie-in after the 5.55 and 6am starts of the school week.

It was bright, thankfully. Or at least what passes for bright on a dark, drizzly September morning in Ireland. During the week, when I come downstairs just before six, the kitchen is completely dark now. Somewhere over the past few weeks, almost without me noticing it happening, the mornings have changed.

I had a few little bits and pieces to do, made myself a cup of tea and was pottering around the kitchen when I looked out of the back window and noticed some blackberries that looked ready to be picked. That reminded me that I hadn’t checked the apples and pears for a few days either.

I was still in my pyjamas and had absolutely no intention of getting properly dressed at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning, so I slipped my feet into the clog-type flip-flops that live beside the back door and headed outside.

This was a ridiculous choice.

We have had so much rain over the past week that the grass has suddenly shot up and badly needs cutting. It had rained heavily again overnight and within a few steps my feet were absolutely soaked.

Alfie followed me as far as the back door, took one look at the wet grass and made the considerably more sensible decision to sit on the doorstep and watch me.

The apples and pears weren’t quite as accommodating as I’d expected either.

I’ve already picked quite a lot of the apples this year, but there are still some on the tree. A few were ready this morning. Others need a little longer.

The pears were even less decided. I came away with a handful, but most are staying exactly where they are for now.

It was the same with the blackberries. Some dark and ripe and ready to come away. Others still needing time.

And standing there with wet feet and a handful of fruit, I started looking properly at the garden.

September is changing everything quietly

It was incredibly still this morning.

There was no wind at all, just that lovely soft rain that seems almost to hang in the air. The birds were everywhere, and without the usual noise of a busy day I could hear them properly.

I spotted two pheasants out in the field beyond the garden.

The hedgerows are filling with berries.

And the trees are beginning to turn.

Not dramatically. We’re nowhere near the great sweep of copper and orange that we tend to imagine when we think of autumn. In fact, if I were to take a photograph of the garden this morning, you’d probably say that it was still mostly green.

But when I really look, there isn’t just one green anymore.

There are deep greens and olive greens, leaves beginning to edge towards brown, burgundy appearing through the hedges and little flashes of gold. Some trees have changed considerably already. Others barely at all.

Everything seems to be moving towards autumn, but nothing is in a particular hurry to get there.

And I think that’s one of the things I love most about September.

There is such a richness to it.

Spring always feels like an awakening to me. Everything is pushing upwards and outwards and we’re beginning to look towards summer.

But autumn feels different.

Perhaps because I live in Ireland, there is something wonderfully normal about it.

Grey skies and damp mornings don’t require us to stop what we’re doing. We put on a coat. We turn on a lamp. We get wet feet because we foolishly went outside in flip-flops. And we get on with the day.

There is comfort in its familiarity.

Not everything ripens at the same time

What struck me this morning, though, was just how uneven all this change is.

On the same September morning, one apple is ready to be picked and another isn’t.

A blackberry can be perfectly ripe while the one beside it is still red.

One tree is already beginning to brown while another remains resolutely green.

The light has changed. The days are shortening. The sun is lower in the sky. And yet the air is still mild.

None of it happens at once.

And none of it seems wrong because of that.

We accept it completely in a garden.

I didn’t stand underneath the pear tree this morning feeling frustrated that most of the pears weren’t ready because it’s already the middle of September.

I picked the ones that were ready.

I’ll come back for the others.

And perhaps that’s why the thought stayed with me when I came back inside.

Because I’m not sure we always extend ourselves the same patience.

We like things to happen on schedule

For a long time, I think I believed that if I organised things properly enough, worked hard enough or planned far enough ahead, I could have quite a lot of control over when things happened.

And obviously, to some extent, we do.

We make plans. We set goals. We turn up. We do the work.

But life has a habit of ignoring our carefully constructed timetables.

I’ve had a very ordinary reminder of that over the past couple of weeks.

Our broadband went down.

It happened at exactly the point when I had a very clear idea of the work I wanted to get done. I knew what I wanted to create. I had the time set aside. I was motivated and ready to get on with it.

Except I couldn’t.

I tried working from my phone hotspot, but the signal wasn’t always strong enough for what I needed to do. Things wouldn’t load. Jobs that should have taken a few minutes took far longer.

And I could feel myself getting increasingly frustrated by it.

Not simply because the broadband wasn’t working, but because things weren’t happening when I had decided they should happen.

Eventually, I stopped fighting with it quite so much.

The work would get done.

Just not necessarily according to the timetable I’d created for it.

And it did.

The last few days have been enormously productive. Things I had been trying to get finished have fallen into place. Other things are still waiting.

Nothing terrible happened because my plans had to move.

Perhaps I’m becoming a little better at accepting that.

Some things need another week on the tree

There is a difference, I think, between making things happen and believing we can decide exactly when everything should be ready.

Some things respond beautifully to a plan.

Others need time.

An idea might sit quietly for months before we suddenly know what to do with it.

A decision that once felt impossible can one day feel surprisingly clear.

We can be completely confident in one part of our lives and still be figuring out another.

And sometimes we simply aren’t ready yet.

I’ve become much more comfortable with that as I’ve got older.

There was probably a time when I thought adulthood eventually arrived at some point in a neat, completed form. That we’d reach an age when we knew what we were doing, had everything sorted out and stopped changing quite so much.

I’m 47.

I’m beginning to suspect that point doesn’t exist.

And I’m quite glad about that.

There are parts of my life that feel settled and sure. There are others I’m still working out. There are things I’m ready for now that I wouldn’t have been ready for five years ago, and perhaps things I’m still not ready for at all.

Maybe that’s not something to fix.

Maybe that’s simply how we ripen.

The garden doesn’t seem worried about any of this

As I sit here writing, the sky outside the kitchen window is still grey.

The garden is wet.

The light coming through those huge windows is lower than it was only a few weeks ago, and later I’ll probably switch the lamps on long before I would have done in July.

But it is incredibly pretty.

There is green and burgundy and brown and gold. There are berries in the hedgerows and fruit still hanging from the trees. There are things finishing and things becoming ready and things that need a little longer.

All of it belongs to the same September garden.

And perhaps that’s what I want to remember from this morning.

We don’t all have to arrive at the same place at the same time.

Even within one life, everything doesn’t have to be ready at once.

There can be things to gather now and things to leave alone for another while.

There can be certainty beside uncertainty, beginnings alongside endings, parts of ourselves that have changed and others that are still very much becoming.

This morning I brought a handful of pears, some apples and a few blackberries back into the kitchen.

The rest can stay where they are.

I’ll check again next week.

Chat soon,

Ciara x

🍂 Continue Exploring Autumn

Autumn is a season of slowing down, finding comfort in everyday moments, and creating simple rhythms that help us feel grounded. If you’re looking for more gentle inspiration, you’ll find plenty of seasonal ideas, free printables and cosy reads waiting for you below.

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• A Slower Life, Right in the Middle of a Full One
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• Slow October: 31 Simple Ways to Cosy Up Your Days This October
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• When the Days Feel Like Themselves Again
  There’s something lovely about summer days losing their edges. But as autumn returns, I’m rediscovering the quiet comfort of the week finding its shape again — Friday feeling like Friday, Sunday feeling like Sunday, and ordinary life settling back into its familiar rhythm.
• Not Everything Ripens at the Same Time
  On a soft, drizzly September morning, the apples, pears and blackberries offered a quiet reminder: not everything ripens at the same time. A seasonal reflection on change, readiness and learning to let life unfold in its own time.