The Hunt for Red October

This month I have been mostly:-

- Digging the garden - with a toad and shrew for company.  Frank, you missed one!

- Dreaming - lots.

- Drinking red wine (cause of above?).

- Doing restorative Yoga in a darkened room and trying not to snore.

- Daring to try new things.

My fellow Bungalow Girl has been to Paris on a work trip and texted me these snaps.  I wasn't jealous in any way, shape or form.

I wore Big Dog out one Friday morning by going on a three hour walk!  Pics below.

Puff ball fungi

Spindle tree

We've been on fungi forays in the woods.

Grovely Woods

Common Stink-horn - was so chuffed to spot this!

Jelly Fungi

We've seen a sculpture exhibition by Jenny Pickford entitled 'SuperNature' at The Courts - a National Trust Garden.  The exhibition comprised of 17 sculptures made of forged steel and hand blown glass. Lunch in the old billiard room wasn't bad either.  

Two soups.....

The kitchen garden was cute.  Still lots of colour.

I've been making lots of different soups and cakes.

Carrot, apple and celery soup

Autumn skies are the best......

Eerie

Moody

Spooky

Last Friday it tipped down but rain and gloom doesn't put Big Dog off.  

Hare Warren

This white foam can sometimes appear after a dry spell and subsequent torrential rain.  As the rain flows down the tree it mixes with the salts and acids in the bark and forms a crude soap.

Strange tree foam

I've enjoyed kicking through the leaves

And then snuggling under 'blankie' with my book and a mug of tea.  Simple pleasures are the best.

This is the time of year for lit rooms at dusk.  I used to linger over the chapter in The Wind in the Willows in which lost, homesick and frightened, Mole looks wistfully at the 'squares of a dusky orange-red on either side of the street, where the firelight or lamplight of each cottage overflowed through the casements into the dark world without'.

Mirabel Osler 'In the Eye of the Garden'