Autumn

It's well under way. The days are a little shorter, and the nights are certainly colder. I have closed up the top part of the house and moved into my Winter bedroom. We now have the wood stacked in the barn to keep dry. The fire is being lit most nights.

The other day on the way home, the wind picked up as we drove past the Plane trees lining the road. The sky filled with dry leaves floating toward the ground. It really was beautiful. We have been having frost because of clear nights - that should hopefully get the Autumn colours going.

I have been taking to the woods several times a week for walks. Behind our village there is a warren-like network of farm tracks that lead inquisitive travellers into another world of natural beauty. It's simple - there aren't many major land marks where I have been going, but the peace one can find in the quiet forests and meadows has a healing power not found in the city. Indeed there are some parts where even the pleasant sound of cow bells does not reach. There the wind in the trees and the occasional call of a bird of prey complement the quiet sound of autumns approach.

Clambering off the edge of flat meadows and into the forest yields delightful surprises - Ceps, Bolettes and other fungus decorate the leaf-strewn floors. Signs of life are evident there in the nibbled edges of the caps, perhaps by Hedgehogs, perhaps by the small forest birds or rodents.

Since time is short - winter is fast approaching - it is not rare to find a shrew above ground rustling in the leaf litter, cursing and complaining as she searches for a morsel of something or another.

The normally quiet villages and fields feel uncomfortably noisy on emerging from the calm of the lost natural world of the forest.