A glorious autumn

The Mole is back from his summer holidays. Abroad he had been baked by blistering sun and it was a relief to return to cooler climes, but even here the summer had been hot, extended and glorious. The village had resounded to the cries of excited children bouncing around on trampolines and running in and out of wigwams. It is calmer now that schools are back and the air is cooler.

But Oh my! - how the trees and hedgerows are putting on a show! Now we have the whole tapestry of Autumn colours. The chestnuts were the first to show the change of season, their leaves going conker brown at the tips. Almost imperceptively, the hawthorns began to lose the deep green in their leaves and to show the whole range of yellows they first had in spring.

Now there is a full store cupboard for the birds all along the hedgerows - sloes, bullace, and the crimson hawthorn berries themselves set the bushes aflame as their leaves drop early.

Only elderberries are scarce this year as these were affected by the high summer drought. Along the road there is a huge thicket of blackberries that makes the pavement unpassable, but already these have mostly been turned to mush by recent rains. There may have been less blackberry in the apple crumbles this year but there are still tight small red berries that will serve for the birds larder later on. Apples, quinces and medlars are all abundant now as were the summer plums earlier.

Autumn is a magical time but it is hard to write about it without stumbling into cliche. Or so thought the Mole as he studiously tried not to echo Keats and write of this season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.