Well, after yesterday mornings glorious mists today has been a mixed bag, the rain overnight certainly quashed any hopes of a repeat performance as the skies didn’t clear too early thereby leaving the temperature a little too warm to give any fog or mist, the sunshine came out to play along with the clouds ( threatening at times ) and there was very little in the way of wind, despite all that things seemed a little flat and inspiration was hard to come by.

Fortunately, in the absence of any views or vistas, I decided to concentrate my efforts on the little things, the details in the leaves that are now falling in flurries and covering the ground at every turn. For all their delicacy they have an amazing structure which shows the most intricate of detail as they slowly decompose, becoming ever more brittle and fragile, little lace like patterns reveal as the waxy skin breaks down before they eventually disintegrate and crumble away.

In due course the wind and rain will take it’s toll and the leafy canopy will all be brought tumbling down to reveal the stark outlines of the trees, once again Nature will reveal one of it’s wonderful masterpieces, there is nothing so sculptural in form as a tree in winter silhouetted against a skyline of almost any description, the Autumn is well on it’s way and Winter will be hard on it’s heels. For now I’ll enjoy the leaves but I’m certainly anticipating the first of the frosts and things to come.

At last! The rain has stopped, albeit temporarily, more is forecast overnight but today has been a blissful respite from the recent downpours. I guess it’s just nature’s way of redressing the balance and goodness only knows we needed some rain to restore the water table after the hot, dry summer.

We awoke this morning to heavy mist, damp and clinging, but at least there was the promise of it burning off as the sun got going and did it’s thing, which it duly has. It made for a very ethereal start to the day, clouding and shrouding everything, muffling sound and sight, rendering colours as pastel tones, imbuing everything with a soft glow. Getting out and about early to enjoy it was a pleasure all of it’s own.

I ventured into the woods at Broad Oak and wandered down the track, promising myself that I wouldn’t go far, just far enough to take a few photo’s, not do the usual trick of wandering half the wood in anticipation of getting an elusive photo. The wood has a way of sucking you in, drawing you down along it’s meandering, winding, magical paths. It’s a hard beast to resist and I found myself deep in the wood under a canopy shrouded in mist in places while in other parts there were golden glades bathed in sunshine .

The canopy of the wood is turning slowly, there is colour beginning to show, the leaves are turning but it’s very slow progress as yet, in contrast the floor of the wood in places is a golden glow where the ferns have turned from green to gold and even deeper to russet red. The damp has encouraged the fungi to form, there are hazlenuts and sweet chestnut carpeting the ground, blown down in their profusion by the high winds we’ve had accompanying the dismal wet weather. At the moment the entertainment is at ground level but once the canopy turns all eyes will be drawn towards the sky and the colourful annual spectacle.

Now, there’s a word to conjure with, ‘ of or before the time of the Biblical flood’, well, it certainly seems a bit like that in North Dorset today! I for one am heartily tired of this almost incessant rain, there surely has to be more to Autumn than this, however, I’m also more than aware that our current weather is no more than inconsequential compared to other global weather events such as the typhoon that has struck in the Far East and particularly Japan.

I did almost title this piece ‘Uninspiring’ because that’s how it’s felt today, damp ( to say the least), dreary and dismal with little prospect of getting out and about without resorting to wet weather gear akin to that worn by a North Sea trawlerman, it seemed that today was destined to be a write off creatively. However, whilst typing this the rain has stopped and the sky, although still grey and heavy, has lifted somewhat, there may still be hope yet.

Today’s photo, albeit from yesterday, serves to illustrate the point perfectly, the rain keeps everything sodden, the leaves on the trees are falling without having time to achieve the richness of colour associated with the season and the sky has all the varied hues of an Atlantic going battle cruiser…..grey, punctuated with….grey. The upside to the current situation seems to be the riot of activity in the leaf litter, social media sites are awash with photographs of fungi encouraged by the current conditions, our own local woodland whilst having no glorious, dramatic Fly Agaric species appears to be no exception. There is always something to see if we only open our eyes to the possibilities.

There was a lull in proceedings this morning, the rain stopped and the wall to wall grey sky broke to allow the clouds to show themselves as they scudded across the Blackmore Vale in the relentless, and biting, wind.

It was a welcome break after all the rain we’ve experienced over the last few days and a great opportunity to get out and about without getting soaking wet. As it is the day has gone from strength to strength and , as we speak, the sun has been shining for the last hour or so, I’m beginning to wonder whether or not I should have delayed things and gone out a little later this afternoon but, bird in the hand scenario, I didn’t want to waste the morning in the hope of better things to come.

I’m drawn to this location, high up on Okeford Hill overlooking the vale and along the ridge westwards, it is in turn both solitary, bleak and windswept on some occasions and on others warm and beautiful, it has two distinct sides to it and all dependent on the weather. This morning it was bitingly cold in the stiff wind under the galloping clouds but on a quiet summers evening as the sun sets it’s a very different beast offering delightful views across the vale as far as the eye can see.

Whatever the weather it’s an imposing location and often offers up some photographic opportunities, I was more than glad of this morning’s venture to the top of the hill even if it was only a brief visit, there will be other, more pleasurable encounters no doubt.

Given the weather we’ve had over the past few days and, on the strength of several photographs I took earlier in the week, I decided yesterday that a little ‘still life’ work might well be the order of the day. Having checked the weather forecast for the coming week it may well be that ‘still life’ might be the flavour of the month!

I rummaged around and found what props I could, a few books ( one with a striking image on the front cover), a couple of interesting tins, Majong dice from an earlier project ( I’ve never played Majong in my life, I have no propensity for card or board games at all, far beyond me I’m afraid. ) and my purple top hat and set about forming some sort of arrangement on the work surface.

I ended up calling the shot ‘The Magician’, there’s an air of the theatrical about it and, without wishing to seem pretentious ( far from it I would hope.), sometimes it takes a bit of magic to conjure up something from almost nothing though it often materialises from a thought or an image, in this case the image of the dragon on the front cover of the book.

It’s given me fresh ideas, coupled with the upcoming Halloween season, whether or not those ideas will bear fruit remains to be seen but at least it’s sparked an interest, the dull, dreary, damp weather outside hasn’t dampened my interest or my creativity it seems.

Though the warmth of the summer season is fast becoming a distant memory replaced by the grey, gloomy early Autumn, things are still just as colourful if we only take the time to look.

The hedgerows are beginning to show definite signs of the impending change, leaves that a few weeks ago were still green are now turning, their edges tinged with yellows and reds. The sweet chestnuts are falling, along with the hazlenuts, the acorns and the horse chestnuts, the recent winds have brought them down and they litter the floor and will soon be joined by the maple and oak leaves as they are drenched by the rain and thrashed by the winds we’ve been experiencing.

As yet we’ve seen no signs of frost though there have been several morning where the heavy dew was bordering on turning. A degree or two less in the temperature would have made all the difference and the fields and meadows would have had a silvery covering with which to enthrall us. I love the first frosts, the opportunity to get out and wander in it, to admire how it makes the simplest of structures look magical with its cold, crisp jewel like crystals adorning cobwebs, cow parsley and teasel heads along the riverbank, it’s always a great start to the day, invariably followed by the sunshine after icy cold, clear night skies.

So, for now we’ll endure the wind and rain, it’ll only make the better weather more appreciated and the promise of better things to come makes the present drab affair a whole lot easier to bear.

…….and the sky is grey! So goes the song, however, it’s only partly true of today. Yes, some of the leaves are brown, certainly not all of them, the vast majority are yet to show any great signs of changing colour but the early signs are encouraging. Hopefully, once we have the first frost, things will escalate and the local woodlands hereabouts will become a riot of colour.

I had to work hard to find my subjects this afternoon, I didn’t really go too well prepaired, a bag would have been a good thing, something at least to put the various leaves, seeds, berries and assorted scavengings in would have been very helpful not to mention sparing my blushes as I meandered through the town centre looking less like something that’d been drawn through a hedge backwards and more like the hedge itself.

Fortunately I had an idea where I might be lucky and find one or two little morsels with which to construct an image and my previous excursions came to fruit as I found all the bits and pieces I wanted, with the exception of the pumpkin, they don’t grow on trees you know, I had to resort to buying that one!

Sheltered and shady in the summer, this old ‘sally’ offers shelter to the cattle down by the river, they lounge and lye in the shade provided by the spreading, tendril like, boughs that have formed from the partially blown over trunk. How long it’s been growing like this is anybody’s guess but it provides a welcome canopy from the sun on a hot day. However, today is , yet again, not a hot day.

Today, so far, we’ve had sunshine and showers, no warmth in the sunshine and the showers have been extremely wetting when they arrive. Needless to say I haven’t ventured far and gazing out from the window it seems that things are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, the temporary sunshine shining obliquely on heavy, rain sodden clouds has turned the horizon a dark purple hue, a portent of more inclement weather approaching .

Wandering the exposed river banks in such weather wouldn’t be any fun, the old willow tree doesn’t offer any protection at this time of year. It’s boughs and branches are losing their leaves rapidly, yellowing and falling fast, beaten and battered by the winds and the rain. In a short time all that’ll be left will be spindly wooden fingers reaching high into cold, grey skies. Autumn’s here and winter will be hard on it’s heels and while I moan and groan about the cold and the damp there is a part of me that can’t wait for the first frosts to arrive and cover the landscape with their white carpet.

Sitting silently in the highest part of the tree overlooking the dirty, sluggish Stour the watchkeeper surveys his domain. Either a cormorant or a shag, I’m no ornithologist and he wasn’t likely to allow me close enough to distinguish one from the other, this bird often frequents the top spars of this tree, silhouetted against the skyline almost as an extension of the tree itself. From here he can see any movement in the water, any likelyhood of a potential meal just under the surface of the river, this is his/her domain.

I’ve seen this bird on several occasions, more often than not on grey afternoons or late on a summers evening, always in the same spot, always stood against the skyline, always silent and always alone. There’s something almost prehistoric in it’s appearance, a small, dark pterodactyl with feathers. Usually once it spots me approaching it makes off but this morning, unusually, it remained on it’s lofty perch while I managed to compose a shot or two, no doubt watching me keenly through some small, beady, black eye. It’s a sinister looking creature, an opinion no doubt shared by the fish in this stretch of the river.

This morning though I would imagine the bird would have had difficulty in seeing anything much in the dark, muddy waters, swollen after yesterdays rain. The only thing breaking the surface today were ripples caused by the gusting wind scudding across the mirror like image, breaking the reflection, creating patterns between the banks before fading back to stillness and then repeating the process all over again as the wind whipped along the water.

I left the silent sentinel to it, perched high on its lofty observation point, watching the world go by through it’s small , beady, cold, dark eyes, brooding clouds overhead dictated it would be prudent to make for the comforts of home before another downpour occurred, getting caught out in the open wasn’t an option to be enjoyed, there’s an awful lot to be said for being a fair weather photographer.

50 shades of grey, and they’re all just outside my window this afternoon, just a vast, bland sea of grey. Grey roofs, grey sky, the merest vestiges of colour, all pretty uninspiring, coupled with the rain it doesn’t make for the best of conditions and certainly isn’t conducive to taking a walk in any way, shape or form.

I guess I could trawl the archives and find another photo but that seems to defeat the object really, I guess today’s shot just serves to illustrate that sometimes things aren’t always sunshine and roses, there are definite ‘up’ days and also definite’ down ‘ days, today falls fair and square in the latter camp.

Things can only get better ( there’s a song in there somewhere ) or I shall have to try harder to find some inspiration, at the moment I am firmly welded to the radiator and enjoying it’s warmth while listening to the rain pitter, patter on the conservatory roof. There will be no redeeming sunset this evening, no star studded sky to gaze on later tonight, the forecasters say this is as good as it gets today and we’ll just have to put up with it, things could always be far worse and are in other parts of the country.

For now I will content myself with the comforts of the radiator, tomorrow may provide a window in the weather at some stage and I may get out in it given half the chance, as they say, tomorrow is a different day!