Catching the leaves ...

I'm wondering if you have a vision of me dashing about with my hands in the air to catch them, but today was definitely a day for making the most of celebrating the glory of autumn before tomorrow's storm sweeps the trees bare. Today was lovely, so that I fretted about not being out of it in the morning when I had things that had to be done. One of these was getting three loads of washing out on the line to dry in the light of the forecast for the coming week; another was making a loaf for lunch; a third was making what seems to be terrifyingly hearty soup for tomorrow's lunch. 

But the afternoon was for the blue sky and the abundance of gold on the trees. And not just gold - bright red berries shone from a hedge and in the wood, where the glossy green of a holly tree looked impossibly glamorous with its red jewels. We walked from the Ardyne to the Russians' - Knockdow house, now closed up but still lovely with its artificial lake and the trees by the old wall - my main photo. The extra is of the lane down to the fields of one of the farms out this way; the geography (south of the Highland Line - we live to the north of it) is quite different from the hills and evergreen forests of the rest of Cowal and yet it's only 7 miles away. 

We passed a couple of extraordinary sheep - I've added another extra just for him - with lion-golden wool and quite extraordinarily endowed, though it's hard to see in this photo. They were quite curious about us - this one trotted towards the hedge to get a better look. I don't think they see many walkers ...

When we came home, we moved the iron, glass-topped table off the patio to the foot of the garden where it'll do less damage if it gets blown over (it should go into the hedge) and filled the watering-can that sits against the wall so that it won't blow away. We also folded down the whirligig as providing less for the winds to play with - our forecast isn't quite as severe as the western isles, but it's bad enough. 

Wonder how we'll fare at church, up there on its hill? Sufficient unto the day ...