Welcome to the Fern podcast, as the season turns.

Released on the first of the month, each episode will be following the changing landscape of the seasons,

from the moon and the stars to the tides and the trees.

I'm Leah Lainters, author of The Almanac, a seasonal guide,

and this podcast is created by Fern,

makers of small batch organic perfume,

who blend, barrel age and bottle four fragrances a year,

released at the equinoxes and solstices.

We hope that this brief guide to the month ahead will awaken you to the rhythms of the year and help you to

settle deeper into the seasons home in August takes on a deliciously doldrums-like quality.

If you're able to take time off, then days spill into each other in a haze of nothing much.

Maybe an afternoon visit to a lider with the papers one day, a dusk potter in the

garden with a frosted glass of wine the next. If you're at work in August, then the most basic

task feels like wading through treacle, with every other email met instantly by an out-of-office

reply that whispers,

I am elsewhere lying in dappled shade with a book, gasping as a cold, sun-sparkling wave crashes over me. Your sales figures will wait. There is a suspension of activity and

expectation in August, and it is good to see how little

we can get away with. We have worked hard, and now we can reap some time. But into the space

that August leaves, we do pour fun, holidays by the sea, barbecues with people we mean to spend

more time with, but never do,ivals, carnivals and day trips.

There is another kind of reaping to be done too, as all of the produce of the vegetable patch,

the cut flower garden and the hedgerows start to ripen at once.

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