6 Activities In Autumn You Mustn't Forget To Do In The UK

Autumn in the UK lasts about ten minutes if you're not paying attention. One week it's warm enough for a jacket, the next you're scraping ice off the car and wondering where October went.

The season has a habit of arriving dramatically with gold leaves and misty mornings, then sliding into grey without much warning.

The problem isn't that people don't enjoy autumn. It's that they mean to do things and then don't. The weekend fills up, the weather puts you off, and by the time you actually get round to it, it's November and the leaves are mostly brown mush on the pavement.

So this post is a straightforward reminder. Six things that are genuinely worth doing in autumn in the UK, with enough detail to actually make them happen rather than just think about them.

1. Go foraging (even if you're a total beginner)

Autumn is the best time of year to forage in the UK, and you don't need any prior knowledge to start. Blackberries are usually done by early October, but hedgerows are still packed with sloe berries, rosehips, and crab apples well into the month.

If you're near woodland, look for sweet chestnuts underfoot from late September onwards. They're a completely different thing to horse chestnuts, which are not edible, so it's worth a quick look online before you head out to know what you're picking up.

Wild mushroom foraging is popular too, but be honest with yourself about your level of confidence. A guided foraging walk is a much better starting point than going it alone with a pocket guide.

The British Mycological Society runs events around the country, and many woodland trusts and nature reserves offer sessions for free or a small fee. You come back knowing what you actually picked, which feels like a much better outcome.

2. Find a bonfire night event worth going to

The fifth of November is one of those dates that's easy to dismiss if you've done a few mediocre events in a car park with a bin fire and some wet sparklers.

A properly organised bonfire night is a completely different experience. Towns like Lewes in East Sussex take it seriously to the point of being a bit overwhelming. The seven bonfire societies each build and burn their own effigies while up to 80,000 people pack into the streets. It's an extraordinary night, but it's also genuinely a lot. There are brilliant local events all over the country that don't require a two-hour drive.

Check your local council website in October because community events tend to get listed there before they sell out. Many are free. If you're taking kids, look for events that specify a 7pm or 7:30pm start rather than 9pm, because an hour of freezing in the dark before anything happens is not fun for anyone.

3. Pick your own apples or visit an Apple Day event

Apple Day runs every year on or around the 21st of October, and it's been going since 1990.

Common Ground, the charity that started it, wanted to draw attention to how many traditional apple varieties the UK was losing, and events have been running in orchards, parks, and city farms ever since. You can find listings through the Common Ground website or by searching your county plus "Apple Day."

If you can actually pick your own, do it. Pick-your-own orchards charge by the bag or by weight, and you'll come home with varieties you've never seen in a supermarket. Blenheim Orange, Cox's Orange Pippin and Worcester Pearmain are all examples.

The difference in flavour between a freshly picked apple and one that's been in cold storage since August is significant enough that it changes what you think about apples generally.

4. Walk a long-distance footpath for a weekend

You don't have to do the whole thing. A two-day section of almost any UK long-distance footpath in October is a completely different experience to doing the same walk in summer. I'll be in my beloved Scotland.

The paths are quieter, the light is lower and better for photos, and accommodation is easier to book at short notice because it's off-peak. Two nights in a bunkhouse or B&B along the route is the format that works for most people with jobs and normal lives.

The South Downs Way, the Cotswold Way and the North Downs Way are all good for this because they're easy to dip in and out of by public transport. You can do a 20-mile section from a station, sleep overnight, and take the train back from a different point the next day.

The National Trails website has maps, route descriptions, and accommodation links for every trail in England and Wales.

5. Go to an open-air cinema or theatre performance

This one has a short window. Most open-air cinema events in the UK run from May through to October, and some specifically programme autumn films towards the end of the season, horror nights for Halloween, that kind of thing. Luna Cinema and Rooftop Film Club both operate across multiple UK cities.

Prices are higher than a regular cinema, often between £15 and £25 a ticket, but the combination of a film you know well, a good location, and a genuinely cold night that everyone's pretending is fine is hard to replicate.

Theatre is worth checking too. Most outdoor theatre seasons wrap up in September or October. The Minack Theatre in Cornwall runs until the end of October, and there are often end-of-season runs at other venues around the country.

Tickets for late-season shows are sometimes reduced. Sitting watching a play in the dark with a thermos of something hot is a perfectly reasonable way to spend an October evening.

6. Learn how to make a proper batch of something preservable

Autumn is when you find yourself with too many apples, still-going courgettes, and a bag of sloe berries you foraged and then ignored for a week.

Making a big batch of something you can eat in January makes the whole season feel more productive. Sloe gin is the obvious one, and it's straightforward enough: put sloe berries in a jar, add sugar and gin, give it a shake every few days, and leave it in a dark cupboard until Christmas. It needs a bit more attention than that in reality, but not much.

Chutney is more useful if you want something for food. A basic apple and onion chutney takes about an hour on the hob, keeps for up to a year in sterilised jars, and uses up a lot of apples fast.

The BBC Good Food website has reliable recipes that have been tested by actual people, which is worth saying because a lot of preserving recipes online have not.

The National Trust runs preserving workshops at some of their properties in autumn, and local WI branches often hold them too.

If you've never made anything like this before, doing it alongside someone who knows what they're doing saves a lot of guesswork about whether the consistency is right.