autumn walks

There is nothing quite like getting rosy cheeked and mad-haired on blustery autumn walks when all that seasonal colour and wind blows away the cobwebs and somehow justifies the onset of crumbles and roasts!

A couple of days ago we went east to Church Farm in Ardley and had a good stomp about admiring the pigs and piglets on a circular walk that took us through the farm, along fields and country lanes and through little woods and happily, to a cosy pub for a glass of locally brewed ale. Perfecto.

Those piglets were adorable,

and all around were the colours of ripening berries and leaves having their last hurrah!

The is something wistful about the last ragtag leaves hanging onto their branches, not wanting to let go.

To be honest, it was mostly one of those slightly misty, milky looking afternoons that does not show autumn colour at its best, but it was lovely to be tramping through woods, spying hidden away cottages tucked away between folds of the fields,

and watching dusk gather around the edges of the views.

And just when we thought it was going to be one of those quiet afternoons when colours are soft and muted and autumn hasn't thrown its fire at you in quite the way you thought it might, the sun seemed to fall dramatically to earth in one of the most incandescent sunsets I have ever seen in England. In the gently undulating landscape, with no mountains or buildings to obscure the view, we were surrounded by the most incredible light.

Always worth pulling on the wellies and getting out there!  xx