OK, so I can live in denial no more – it’s autumn!

That’s OK though – what’s not to love about this time of year? Especially when you live next door to an enchanted forest – full of freely roaming ponies, cows, pigs, pixies, etc. I only wish I led a lifestyle that meant I could spend more of my daylight hours there.

Things I like about autumn:

• walks in the forest, kicking up the leaves
• soup
• golden leaves
• smell of bonfires and fireworks (esp. 5th November)
• socks
• crumpets
• woolly jumpers
• better stuff on the TV
• predominance of the colour orange
• apples
• mugs of cocoa

Things I don’t like about autumn:

• Lack of daylight
• Christmas! ( I love christmas, just not in October.)

How about you – anything you love or loathe about this time of year?

Photos taken with Canon 5D MkII and 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 IS USM lens

I live in a bit of the country that has no mountains at all – plenty of other geological wonders but the odd steep hill is as mountainous as it gets. So with this in mind you can imagine how superbly exciting it is to travel somewhere where the rocks tower up and touch the skies – like Snowdonia in Wales, for example.

The hotel below… fabulous, huh? It’s not where we stayed but I like to believe if we had it would have been exactly like the ‘Great Northern Hotel’ in Twin Peaks. It’s called the ‘Swallow Falls Hotel’, which is a big clue to the deafening roar that fills the air…

Wowzers! There were quite a few ‘proper’ photographers here setting up their tripods and getting clever long exposures – I like to be improper though and managed by balancing my camera on the hand rail and holding my breath.

Taken with Canon 5D MkII and a car boot full of lenses

This was the first weekend in flippin’ ages where I had no commitments, no errands, no chores… well, OK, there were chores but I have a little trick I’ve perfected when it comes to those – I completely ignore them!

All this freedom was very fortunate – it meant as soon as the sun felt bothered enough to peep out like a coy geisha, I was able to jump in the car and find some nearby countryside to bask in its glory!

This is going to sound very hippy-ish (and no, I don’t normally hold with such hokem), but I do think it does the human body good to be submerged into masses and masses of green-ness. As soon as you exit the city it’s so apparent that everything, everywhere is so verdently lush and green and relaxing and breathing seems so much easier. Green, green, green. And red, of course.

Oh, I love poppies!