Sunday 21 August 2011

But it's only the middle of August

Anyone has read any of my blog previously will have figured out that I like to be outdoors and preferably amongst trees. If I had my own way, I'd live like a hermit in a log cabin in woodland, spending my time as a camera and jewellery making bum without having to worry about paying the bills.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

I'll grant you, you were pretty well hidden there amongst the long grasses, but I did spot you!

I'd be quite happy to live the simple life, I don't need clothes shops or restaurants and night clubs, I'd be pretty happy to have fresh air, peace and quiet and would even be prepared to grow and manage much of my own food. People talk of the 'Champagne lifestyle' if you won the lottery. What I'd buy would be solitude. I'd buy the biggest tract of land I could afford and plonk a nice house in the middle of it. I think I'd quite like to be reasonably comfortable - I'd need a hot shower and broadband connection, but I wouldn't need gold taps or marble floors.

Come on, play fair, we haven't even had a summer yet!

Even the leaves that are outwardly green, are starting to turn and the green is becoming more golden.

Both of us work pretty darned hard and often very long hours and it becomes very important to us to get outside - either at the weekend or in an evening. So whenever weather is suitable - and often when it's not - and we have the briefest of opportunities, we abandon chores and head outside. Thankfully, we don't really have to go far, we have several nice places to walk within a ten minute drive, so come the weekend, we grab walking boots and waterproofs, camera and walking pole and head out.

A significant amount of the bracken is already turning - not just the odd dead leaf, but great patches of it.

We did one of our usual weekend routes at lunchtime today and I was astonished at how many trees were already turning to their autumnal display - many trees were both dropping leaves and turning colour - is it me, or does this seem to happen earlier every year?

I'm sure in the past, you wouldn't see any golden leaves until well into September. It's simply not fair, we haven't even had a summer yet! Summer never seems to have even got going this year and here we are, already tramping over scrunchy dried leaves and feeling a bite of chill in the air.

I certainly like autumn well enough - but what I don't like is how it sneaks up on you whilst you're still contemplating summer and don't feel ready for it to appear yet. We didn't get a summer propper, so maybe we'll get an Indian Summer?


2 comments:

Helen Smith said...

It's strange, I was thinking the other day that the leaves were turning later than they had done the last few years, they have definitely been turning here in August lately, but not quite yet this year.

One thing I did notice was that the leaves were out earlier in the Spring this year, we have a beech hedge and it is only very occasionally that it is fully out by the first May bank holiday as it was this year, usually it doesn't make it until the second.

Boo's Jewellery said...

You're no doubt right Helen - it just feels as though we haven't even had summer yet. Spring certainly got going earlier, the lovely weather at the end of April really moved it on - so it's no surprise really that whole seasons are shifting earlier.

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