Summer's end

In a way it wasn't such a great hardship 

to have scaffolding up in summer

because I always forget that the light doesn't penetrate

until autumn.

This is possibly Great Dixter's finest hour.

Zinnias are giving dahlias a run for their money this year.

Someone had her fourth birthday.

All things unicorn and rainbow

were the order of the day.

Overtaken by events

Of course I have dozens of pictures from our New York trip.

Parks, museums, streets, meals, family outings,

Trick or Treating, iconic buildings and bridges, wildlife,

autumn colour, quirky sights.

You can probably imagine most of them.

I should put them up, as a reminder of an intense and amazing experience,

but what with my computer struggling to upload said pictures

while Photos fights with iPhoto

and me struggling to imagine what's going to happen now,

the following is the best I can manage.

It's bathetic I know.

Big Bird takes a moment in Central Park.

Dead bird lies on a Manhattan pavement.

Summer's End

It was a perfect day to tackle a section of the 1066 Country Walk.

 And then this:

the sight of House Martins congregating on telephone wires and roofs.

We stopped half way for lunch in a pub,

turned back to retrace our footsteps,

and every last one of them had gone.

Today I pulled up the spent squash and runner bean plants
and started to think about -

you might want to look away now - 




my Advent window.

Fly past

One of the things I can be relied upon to say,

as I struggle to find anything to like about

this time of year is,

At least the flies have gone.

But here is a sight to add to my glass half empty -

 a murmuration over marshes at dusk.

First they flew past us

in a continuous stream.

Then the line coalesced into an ovoid,

before swooping down to roost for the night.

This sequence took just 15 seconds.

We were so lucky to catch it as we drove past.