Copper-coloured coat

The biggest tree in our garden is totally unsuitable for an English domestic setting. It is a massive Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), a tree which left to its own devices can grow big enough for a multi-lane highway to run through the middle: a trunk road, you might say! Ha ha. Its size will have to be reduced at some point, but for now its leaves have just completed their colour change from summer's light green to autumnal bronze. It does look splendid.

Today is the young master's birthday. After another badly broken night for both children (and parents), the birthday boy didn't wake till mid morning, so by the time we visited after little Miss B was home from school, he was still full of beans, as was his sister. All the excitement so late in the day may not bode well for tonight, but who knows? Fingers crossed everyone gets a decent night's sleep. The children ate well and enjoyed birthday cake for afters, as did we all.