In my garden in October

Between the showers today, I popped outside to take a few quick photos.  The one above is of my 'Beauty Bush', I've had this shrub for about 15 years and although it has occasionally decided to flower, I have never had berries on it.  Aren't they an amazing colour?  I'm sure it's in the wrong place but I don't think I'll be moving it now.

The leaves are falling from the trees now, particularly as it has been really windy today.  Here in the south west of Scotland we are missing the worst of the storms predicted for the south of England, however we did have 50mph gusts and lots of leaves had gathered between the path and the grass.

 

Lovely Gentian, still blooming despite the weather.

 This Polyanthus also provides a splash of colour.

The glorious blue skies make this look like a summer day but the brief spells of sunshine were interspersed with very heavy showers and sometimes the sky in front of the house was blue and the behind the house it was very, very dark!  You can see that our field is full of water, the usual 'pond' is about a third of the size of this, fortunately it is far enough away from the house not to cause any alarm.

Stay safe everyone.

Swallows

This morning started out very misty, a typical start to a sunny autumn day.  If the weather wasn't enough of an indicator, the swallows had gathered on the wires ready to fly south for the winter.

I love when the swallows arrive early in the summer and am always a little sad to see them go, because the days are really beginning to get noticeably shorter now.

What are your signals for spring/summer and autumn/winter?

Autumn Fruits

It was a warm day today, perfect for a walk and what a treat it was to see such an abundance of fruits in the hedgerows.  There are still loads of blackberries although they are not all they seem, some have been spoiled by the rain.  I picked some on Friday evening and probably have enough in the freezer for my purposes. It does seem a shame not to pick them, but I just don't have enough time to preserve them. 

The hedgerows are also full of haws on the hawthorn hedges and, for the first time for many years, we have some beautiful rose hips. The pictures were so vibrant, I was inspired to do a digital layout!

Scraporchard Template Challenge

We went for a walk on Sunday and, of course, the camera came too! The leaves are only just beginning to turn colour so a lot of gold and still some green. This LO is uses the template for the Scraporchard template challenge, papers/elements are either my own (the impressionist leaf background) or from the SO September Mega by the SO Designers, the Word Art is 'Elegant Word Art by Bethany Harty - The Simple Life'.

New season, new blog banner

Sorry, I know it confuses everyone when I change my blog banner, but I get fed up with the same one all the time! Autumn is definitely here, we had quite a hard frost this morning and the berries on my holly tree and the hawthorn hedges are all red and autumnal.