The Parsnips

The seasons have changed. It’s 7 November, it’s cold, and the air is thick with the scent of a failed revolution. A heavy fog sits still over London, cloying with it the smell of last night’s fireworks displays. Guy Fawkes Night, the celebration of the unsuccessful Gunpowder Plot, is dissipating. But the fog appears like smoke, and smells like it too. If you look, the evidence of a tough summer is around us. After the harsh sun and droughts of June, July and August, flowers bloomed late in September and continued through a warm October. The trees are only just losing their leaves, trying to coax a little more life out of the shortening days. This autumn’s parsnips show struggle. The usually fat, blonde roots are instead lanky, straggling spikes with a long tail. They spent the season digging deep through parched earth, searching for life at the edge of the receding water table. Why the strained metaphor?, you ask. We’re digging deep too. Our seemingly feasible plans are shedding scope…

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