November again!

As the month changes, I lift my head from my drawing board, and a series of studies of Ancient Oak trees, to both enjoy and celebrate in pictures and words, the wonders of the English Autumn.

I often talk to friends and family about the power of the ‘green and the blue’ of  the world out of doors, and at this time of year, I add those shades of gold and yellow that pour into our senses as we wonder at the falling leaves. This year the winds here have been calm and quiet, so individual leaves fall twirling to the ground, almost slowly enough to catch as they approach - as a child I believed that each Autumn leaf I caught before it reached the ground would bring me a lucky month, and spent hours trying to collect twelve - stand under your favourite tree and try it - it’s more difficult than it looks!

We waited and waited for the Indian Summer, but it seemed destined to miss us this year, condemning us to damp and wet walks among the still green trees. At last, during the last two weeks of October, we went for two Autumn walks, one along the Manifold Trail, a favourite walk, usually solitary, but on this day, busy with others enjoying the sunshine. The great beeches near  Swainsley House were ablaze with gold and yellow, shining in the still air, and the trees arching above us were changing through green and yellow to orange and gold.

But it was a walk in the last week of October in the wonderful Yorkshire Sculpture Park which at last offered the glories of Autumn. We were able to admire russet and gold beech trees with thousands of leaves beneath them and more to come; yellow and red maples; pale ash leaves and even the rough and tough, grey/green leaves of sycamores. Our walk took us to the far side of the lake where the path  was quieter, and we were able to appreciate the old grey trunks of beeches, standing like elephant legs among the fallen leaves.

And now the winter begins, amid worriers about the coming effects of our self-inflicted Global Warming on our weather. I will be continuing my series of portraits of Ancient Oaks, hoping to visit more of those included in the Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Inventory. I will probably have to wait to meet this year’s winner, the Skipinnish Oak of Lochaber, but I do hope to visit some of the others on the list, having attempted portraits of The Old Man of Calke at Calke Abbey,  The Great Queen Elizabeth 1st Oak in Sussex and the Gregynog Oak in Wales, all of which we visited in wet English summer weather,  and reaching them involved wet walks through long grass and nettles! This will explain why I restrict myself to taking photographs which I then develop in graphite at home.