Frosty Mornings

An overnight frost and a misty morning was the prelude to a fresh bright autumn day that is so much more preferable to those dark dank dismal days that are also a feature of November. The fallen leaves on the lawn might prove to be an interesting picture but they also highlight the length of the grass and tell me that I perhaps should have given the grass one more mowing before putting the mower away for the year. It's too late to worry about it now though!

Forgotten Fruit

An unexpected turn of events meant that today didn't quite turn out as planned and I hadn't taken a picture for the blog so I took a walk down the garden not really expecting a decent photo as it is looking a little drab at the moment. All the summer flowers have disappeared and the predominant colour is green except for the fallen leaves that constantly litter the lawn but I spied a glimpse of red right at the bottom of the garden. I was surprised to see that even this late in the year, there was still some fruit on the raspberry canes worth picking and equally worth photographing. Hardly enough for a serving but plenty for a taste - don't think there'll be another one this year!

First Day

Depending where you look or who you listen to, autumn in the northern hemisphere officially starts anywhere between September 21st and 23rd but as it was the autumnal equinox sometime yesterday, I reckon that makes today the first FULL day of autumn. Not that we need the date to go by as the spiders in the garden and the ripe quince growing through the fence from next door are more than enough to convince anyone of the season.

Flower In Disguise

Last Thursday I wrote about the only gladioli that had flowered in our garden from a dozen or so that had been planted. Well I'm happy to say another has flowered now but it appears to have adopted a disguise as it looks more like a lily. I'm now looking forward to next year - we might have a whole new species of flowers growing!

Interested Spectator

The beans have just about finished so we decided to take the bean row down this afternoon and give the patch a rough dig for the winter. Pom, helpful as usual soon began to help digging holes in the soft soil but his brother Splinky sat and watched in disdain, probably still sulking as I didn't take his photo yesterday whilst trying to capture Pom. To try and get back in his good books I fetched the camera but as soon as I pointed it at him he was up, off and away so another out of focus photo ensued. One of these days ....

 

The Only One

In previous blogs I've commented on flowers growing in our garden that we had not planted. There was the sunflower for example growing from a discarded heart from the bird table but earlier this year I did plant a dozen or so gladioli bulbs. So far only one has flowered so it would be remiss of me not to take at least one photo of it.

On The Turn

After yesterday's picture of a bird looking for food, I noticed the berries on our holly tree were beginning to turn red today.

They are still not as red as they will be but will surely be a good supply of nutrient for the birds over the winter months. Whether there will be sufficient only time will tell but there will be plenty of food for them on the bird table as well.

A Sure Sign

There's a sure sign of the changing seasons in our garden. It's difficult to walk anywhere without disturbing a spider and more than once I've already face full of web. This spider pictured though seemed content to sit in the middle of a damaged web and wait for some unsuspecting prey much smaller than me to become entangled.

Unthinkable

I did the unthinkable today and went out without the camera. You can put it down to my advancing years if you like but I felt lost without it! On returning home I had no option but to see what the garden had to offer again and I was soon joined by Splinky who took up his favourite spot on the arbour and even Pom gave up the comfort of the armchair that he was so attached to yesterday to join us. It didn't last long though. As I made my way back indoors they both followed as the prospect of feeding time loomed large on their agenda.

First Time For Everything

Another picture from the garden today but this time it's flowers. We've never grown freesias before but bought a job lot of summer flowering bulbs during the spring that were planted in pots and beds in the garden. They are now flowering and are a welcome sight as most of the other plants in the garden flower in the spring. I just wish you could savour the aroma of these.

Another Beanfeast

I was supposed to meeting up with some friends I used to play football with tonight but I woke up this morning with a headache and despite dosing myself all day long it has still not gone. I think it'll be a quiet night with my feet up once I've uploaded this. I hadn't even had the camera out of its case today until a few minutes ago when I wandered into the garden and took a few quick shots. Just checked back and it's only just over two weeks ago (July 2nd) when I captured a shot of the first runner bean to form so just look at them now. We had our first boiling yesterday but at this rate we shall have to be eating them for breakfast, dinner and tea and there'll still be enough for supper too until September at least.

Enough

Time to call an end to the gold theme even though there's at least one more shop in Ilkeston that buys it. Enough is enough so time to move on to something else. I took a close up of the building on the left of this picture showing the clock on the top which would have easily filled the bill as a "time" image but this one through the car windscreen shows a deterioration in the weather as a shower passed over.

 

By the time we were back at home we had a full blown thunderstorm and even as I write this another storm is rumbling by over Swingate way. We've had some lovely weather recently but already people are beginning to say enough is enough about the rain. Still it'll do the gardens good as they say - unless it washes everything away!

Spanish Gold

No "gold" picture today although as Spain won the 18 carat gold trophy that is the World Cup last night, I'm sure there were plenty of celebrations by the patrons of the Spanish Bar.

Today's picture though is more about the weather than the World Cup as these two girls were both sporting umbrellas as opposed to sun shades today. We seem to have gone from July to November in one day with a significant drop in the temperature and the hot sunny days of recent weeks being replaced by a cold and wet one. The gardens will be grateful for it but it came as a shock to the system. Mind you the weather is more in keeping with the football season!

It Just Goes On & On

I thought I had finished with the gold theme but my wife spotted two small birds feeding in the garden that we think are greenfinches. So I took my camera to the bottom of the garden and sat quietly to wait for them returning. They didn't! But just as I was about to give up another bird settled nearby and to my surprise this one was a goldfinch. Am I blessed or what?

A Beanfeast

A beanfeast is slang for a celebration or festive occasion and although two of our grandsons have celebrated birthdays this week the bean feast we are looking forward to is when these beans that are just forming have grown large enough to pick and eat.

Berry Nice Weather.

So we get a spell of fine weather and the fruit is beginning to ripen in the garden and can you believe there is the possibility of a drought in the north west of the country with a hosepipe ban? Now would that be the same area that had floods and heavy snow during last winter? It's almost beyond belief.

Green Green Grass

Nothing to do with Tom Jones' hit song of the 1960s but unless I do something about this green green grass at home soon, I'll have to get a goat! The World Cup has a lot to answer for and I suppose I needn't have watched the rubbish that New Zealand against Slovakia played after lunch but it was too wet to get the mower on anyway. I wonder how they would have coped on a surface like this.

Water, Water, Everywhere

After last night's storm, there's no need to do any watering in the garden today. Even the container that catches the rain off the greenhouse is overflowing!

And just look at how much that grass has grown! The lawn is ready for another mow but there's no chance until it's dried out a bit.

In The Garden

Haven't been very far today so here's a picture from a little corner of the garden - forget-me-nots, aquilegia and fuchsia.