Egypt4u

I had a good day yesterday clearing up the majority of the dead leaves and doing a bit of pruning to two Silver Birch trees in my garden that I keep fairly coppiced at the top. I was going to remove a large plot of Nasturtiums that were probably on their last legs, but as there was still quite a few flowers left I decided to leave them a while longer for any bees that may still visit. They have been very colourful throughout the Summer, but with the first frost they will just wilt and die.


LLL was telling us about the really colourful show of leaves where she lives so on a stroll last week I took a few pictures intending to show some Autumn colours. It was a pleasant and quite bright day and we set of along one of my favourite stretches of canal. We passed by the old church and through the field that had the stubbly remains of this years Maize crop looking forlorn and barren with a few colourful trees behind it, the most colourful being the Beech trees that tend to have the most russet leaves in Autumn.


Once on the tow-path the low afternoon sun was throwing slanting shadows towards the bare hedgerows. Again the Beech trees had the most colour with a few late Blackberries in the hedgerow still clinging on even as their remaining leaves were turning red or already fallen exposing vicious looking spiked tendrils


Little else seemed to have much in the way of Autumn foliage apart from the odd yellow leaves of Hazel and Lime trees with here and there a few evergreens like Holly and Ivy that would break the monotony of brown fallen leaves and bare branches of Sycamores.


A few Snow Berry bushes with their white grape like fruit helping to feed the birds and the all important late flowering Ivy that would keep the insects and bees going for a while longer into the Winter months.


No longer the busy canal of Summer boating and even the long stretches of once green Bracken is now turning to many shades of brown.


Eventually we reached our destination which was a rather pleasant canal side pub a little further on where Annie is quite welcome in the bar area and even gets a bowl of water.


I had a light lunch of carved Wiltshire Ham and mustard on wholemeal bread sandwich with a few fries and washed it down with a very nice pint of ‘Pedigree’ bitter and of course Annie had her share, especially the ham.


We set off back home through the fields which meant negotiating a little bit of road to get there, at this junction there was a nice bit of colour although again it was mainly Beech trees.


We did maybe a couple of more miles through the fields before returning to our starting point, all in all a very pleasant walk even without much variation in leaf colour this year.

Lovely photos! We must be mentally in tune, Horus, because DH and I took a short trip out yesterday and got stuck in horrendous traffic, so did a few detours down side roads and country lanes. I mentioned about the beautiful autumnal colours too.

Nice ones H The colour in your area is about the same as down here. I don't yet get the feeling of a good burst of colour, some trees are already bare and others not started to shed yet. maybe a drawn out autumn.

And your pub lunch is my sort of pub lunch with a good ale.

I dont think that over all it will be a very colourful Autumn, many leaves are just turning brown and then dropping with little in the way of colour.

Good photos H. Your lunch looked lovely too.

This year we had LOTS of fall colour and the News media touted it as the most colourful fall in decades here. Usually the leaves on our trees just fade to dry brown colour. This year the red, yellows and oranges really came out. Very colourful.

A lovely walk Horus with great photos

I could sit there in the pub with you, I'm sure I would enjoy the ham sandwich

Thanks for sharing

And you would be most welcome to join me Kiya and so would Annie as he would get to scrounge off two people

Thinking about your walks Horus, some of which are quite long, I do hope you are always in mobile phone reception.

I say this because my next door neighbour will not have a mobile phone. He resists any form of modern technology. He often gets a bus out of town and gets off somewhere in the country. He then walks maybe cross country to another road where he can get a bus back to town. I am sure that he is often outside the reach of a mobile signal but is stubborn about the possible risks that he runs.

Just thinking of your welfare mate, take care.

Thanks for your concern Grandad and yes it is something that does cross my mind sometimes, I do carry my mobile phone when I go out and have to hope that if I ever needed it then I will have signal. Although my walks are sometimes quite long and even remote to some degree I do usually see other people along the way, so in an emergency situation I can only hope that someone else passes by. As you know yourself it is sometimes difficult to know where to draw the line between independance and foolishness, I can only hope that I am being reasonably cautious.

Just last week here a 72 yr old lady walked out close to our Airport to pick mushrooms. Mushroom picking season is upon us and being able to get chantrelles is a real plus to any meal. When she didn't return a search for her was started and for 6 days we had search and rescue with both dogs and drones (great practical use - ) searching the area for her. Her body was finally located. No cell phone, no ability to call for help. There are no details forth coming (sometimes animals get to people first so usually they don't give details) other than the search was finally called off as they located her body but it is IMPERATIVE you carry something to be able to call out around here and attract attention to yourself.

That being said there are mega areas around here where there is no cell phone reception. I've taken to carrying a small alarm that is really for scaring off a thief/rapist/attacker. Not that I'm particularly worried re: attacker but I do want some sort of mechanism that I can blare out if needed to attract attention and am actually thinking more if my car slid off the road down a ditch (and some ditches here are more like steep gullies) and how could I yell loud enough to attract attention to me.

Good idea about carrying the rape alarm, I actually have one somewhere (still in the packet) that I bought for a security issue I had in mind but resolved, so I may just stick it in my pocket as an audible device

They're only a couple of dollars on Ebay which is where I got mine from. I'm thinking more that if I slid off the road while driving in winter or if I got lost or stuck somewhere I might want one for the loud (20 decibel I think) blaring blast of noise they'd give off so as to attract attention to me.

I basically keep mine in the car but I do think about having something that is small & battery operated that might be just what is needed in an emergency.

I don't know the length of time the battery last for in reality but it said on the package for 20 hours so might be good for a few blasts if ever needed.