Trapped Leaf

There's nothing like a holiday to alter one's daily timetable.
With no street lighting to announce the morning, and with it untypically dark for us townies, His Lordship and I had a very long lie today before I felt the need to cycle into the village to buy the Sunday papers. That's one constant in our lives then.

A quick scan of the headlines, and I went out into the garden with my camera.

It was one of these autumn mornings, damp and raw, when the leaves underfoot were sodden with rain and the dead flowers in the garden wept tears of despair.
Although there was no frost it was very chilly and my fingers got clumsy with the camera buttons..

There is a little stream in the garden which meanders its way down through rocks and planting to disappear from view at the foot under a little Japanese type wooden bridge.
This is a blip of it just before it disappears.

The sun eventually broke through the clouds and suddenly the afternoon was transformed.
The trees were a blaze of yellows, reds, russets, and browns and set off against the dark greens in the background forests of conifers.
In the distance the Cairngorms, their tops adorned with caps of light snow, were trying to shake off the persistent thin gauze of cloud.
It was a magical end to the day.

I'm sitting now with my gin and tonic while the sun, low in the west, streams over the grass and through the window. The tears of the dead flower heads in the borders will dry up at last.