autumnal

These days, September and October are my favourite months. I've always preferred spring with its freshness and promise but, perhaps something to do with getting older, now the slower days of autumn appeal more.

This year we have the autumnal cobwebs, berries and early mornings but in the middle of the day, a real indian summer with temperatures in the 20ºs. It is a perfect combination.

There is a stillness about autumn, the crops have gone and the weeds and wildflowers grow before the ground is ploughed. The fields are full of birds feasting on any grains left behind. Pigeons mainly.

We walked around a local lake on Sunday, very calm and quiet.

The leaves are beginning to fall.

The skies at sunrise have been amazing, this has been my morning view this week.

Autumn has come to the garden too. This is our little front garden, the cyclamen get better each year as new self seeded plants appear.

Rosemoor

I have now been back from my holidays for two weeks so its time I sorted out my photographs. As always I took very many pictures, plenty of memories.

In mid August we spent a few days in Chagford, a small town on Dartmoor. It was a good place from which explore the area.

On my list was the RHS garden, Rosemoor. This was my second visit, the first being many years ago when the children were small, I was able to spend a bit more time looking at the plants this time.

In mid August the Hot Garden was at its peak. The colours were amazing

and the garden was filled with butterflies.

There was softer planting in the spiral garden

and then so many different shades of green beside the lake.

Beautiful reflections in the still water.

With so many visitors to the garden, the birds were used to people and seemed happy to pose for photos.

It was a good day out. I'll leave you with this handsome chap I spotted in the woods.

A misty walk

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, a beautiful morning and I decided to drive a little way to a hill with good views for my walk. As it was such a nice day I packed a flask of coffee in my rucksack.

As I got nearer I drove into the mist and by the time I had parked the car it was quite dense. Power lines faded into the distance

and trees became visible only as I walked towards them.

It felt quite eerie.

The cobwebs on the wheat were pretty.

The shapes of the trees were silhouetted against grey nothingness.

I stopped for my coffee but there was no view.

It was a bit chilly too, first time for mitts this autumn.

Then, as I walked back to the car, slowly the mist  lifted.

It was magical as more and more of the countryside came into view.

By the time I reached the car it was clear.

I have been feeling a bit foggy myself lately. August has been good, I have some holiday photos to post, but underlying worries about ageing parents and their deteriorating health are never far from my mind. Living at a  distance from family members is not easy and I hope we can sort out some solutions to the situation. I must remind myself that this time will pass and we will get something in place in the same way that the mist clears away on a foggy day.

Hello August

Hello there. All is fine here. I haven't posted in a while, there is a lot going on at the moment in my non-blog world and I couldn't seem to find the space in my head to think about blogging.

As it is the first day of a new month I wanted to try and get started again. These are a few photographs from my walk yesterday.

The countryside has changed over the last few weeks as we move past midsummer into harvest time. The wheat is ripening, the barley was cut a few weeks ago, and the verges are full of tall grasses and hogweed. The rain earlier in the year seems to have made everything grow vigorously this year.

I usually post pictures of the landscape and mainly flowers so for a change, some cows having their breakfast

a butterfly sunning itself on the brambles

and this little bird who was singing his heart out yesterday morning.

I'm not very knowledgeable on birds, is it a greenfinch?

I am hoping to get back into the habit of taking photographs and posting again. Susannah Conway is hosting  "the August Break" again this year and I'm intending to post a few pictures to the flickr group  - always interesting to see how others interpret the prompts.

green and white

stitchwort

hawthorn

elder

white campion

rowan

water dropwort, hemlock (caution- extremely poisonous)

goose grass

meadow foxtail

dandelion

cow parsley

The weather is turning warmer and the bright lush green and whites of late spring/early summer will be replaced by darker greens and bright summer flowers. A few photographs recording this wonderful time of fresh green foliage and white flowers.