Autumnal colors

-
Being a Florida native, fall foliage is an exotic thing to me. Yes, we have deciduous trees in North Florida, but we don't get the widespread, vivid colors I see in photos from further up the eastern seaboard. I lived near Washington DC for one autumn, but it had been a particularly dry summer so the colors weren't very vivid and didn't last long. Still, I enjoyed what I could see and was looking forward to seeing the arrival of autumn here in England. 

So far, though, I've not seen much. Here it is October, and only some of the trees have changed color. I wonder if the unseasonably warm and dry summer may be wreaking havoc. Am I going to be denied a landscape shrouded in my favorite color palette? Possibly, but I'm seeing the beauty in what is available. 

For instance, the huge conker trees that dot Oxford. If I recall correctly, a conker is a chestnut tree. I noticed a few days ago that the edges of the leaves on one of the trees I see daily were turning a rusty brown. Now, all of the conker trees have this coloring - green centers and rusty edges. It's not a vivid red or orange. The leaves are just turning brown, yet they're still quite pretty when you look at the tree as a whole. I was going to snap a photo of one with my phone this afternoon, but the bus was coming. The leaves were already blowing away in the faint breeze, so I don't know how long they'll last. There is another tree on the bus route that has tiny, fluttery leaves. Half of its leaves were brilliant yellow. The other half were still bright green. Again, it wasn't the colors I was looking for, but it was still quite pretty in its mixed-up, half summer, half-autumn way.

I am still holding out hope that I will get a glorious autumnal show - that the change of season is only delayed and not bypassed. With any luck, I'll have photos to share.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time to drop the curtain

-
When my Mom passed away in March 2018, my zest for this blog fell dramatically. She was my biggest fan and enjoyed combing through the photos I'd post. But I tried to continue on because my Aunt Jody also enjoyed the blog. Well, she passed away early last year. It's time to call it for this blog. The hubby and I moved to Ireland late last year and I have ideas for an ex-pat in Ireland blog. When we were considering the move, I found little current blogs on the subject. I'm thinking maybe I can fill a gap. But Back and Forth Across the Pond is done now. It was fun and I hope you enjoyed it. Hail and well met. Deanne
Read more

Inverewe Gardens

-
Image
We stopped at Inverewe Gardens on our way home at the recommendation of one of Steve's work mates. It's a property within The National Trust for Scotland, so admission is free to Trust members. We had been pondering joining since we first moved here and decided to just bite the bullet and sign up whilst we were at the gardens. We only have to visit about four more places to have the membership pay for itself. Since the Culloden Battlefield near us in Inverness is part of the Trust, and our membership also grants us access to England's National Trust locations, we figure our membership will end up saving us quite a bit within the year. Inverewe Gardens was once the estate of Osgood Mackenzie. He built his mansion house on a rocky promontory overlooking Loch Ewe in the mid-19th century. He dreamed of having a walled garden of flowers and vegetables and set about excavating a raised beach and building retaining walls and terraces. By 1870, Osgood had created a productive gar...
Read more

Bus, Wall, Pavement, and Park: A Wander Around York

-
Image
The heatwave finally came to an end on our final day in York. It was offered much appreciated relief. We had afternoon tea scheduled in the mid-afternoon, so we broke our day. The morning included an open-top bus tour and a wander along the city's medieval wall; and the afternoon included a stroll through a surprisingly expansive park. We bought a ticket for one of the ubiquitous Hop On-Hop Off bus tours. Pretty much every major city has one of these. Heck, Inverness has one! The ticket is good for 24 hours, so you can actually use the bus as transport if you want. That had been our original intention, but we ended up just doing the hour-long tour and that was the end of it. But we enjoyed it. And I saw bits of York I had never seen before. And learned some interesting tidbits. The tour was broadcast in English, but if you had headphones you could select other languages. Like Kids English  and Yorkshire. When the "bus" part of the day was o...
Read more