Greens that Shine into Autumn

Continuing into autumn with a blog dating from a visit taken on the 06 October 2013.

Took a walk up a small hill (or maybe hillock is a better term) called Muirhouselaw, at the start of October, a hill which is found to the south east of the Eildons and from where they stand out like pimples in the flat surrounds. On this day, which was one of those dull autumn days when the sky was grey, the clouds seem to sit as though they had been loaded with lead. The clouds were not so low as to hide the hill tops, but low enough so as to sit like a distinctive layer in the sky, grey and heavy with much promise of more to come.

The Eildons – 06 October 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Currently the surroundings where set against this dull grey but this brought the greens into full focus, it made them bright especially the improved grassland just in front of where we were standing, which seemed to glow in the gloom. Below even the old greens of the wooded strips that disappear towards the Eildons looked bright and were highlighted by the occasional patch of autumnal gold that was just beginning to appear in the odd tree here and there. Then between the strips of green even the brown of the freshly ploughed fields have begun to shoot away to produce a new sheen of fresh new green.

Peniel Heugh – 06 October 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Spider’s Jewels

Heading from summer to autumn, this is the first blog from the autumn and dates from 28 September 2013.

After a long hot summer I knew that autumn had finally arrived when the morning’s dew remained captured on the delicate filaments of the Spider webs well into the following morning, rather than disappearing at first light. Overnight the Spiders had been working hard in our hedge, to make the top surface a bejewelled carpet of webs, scattered like a fine gossamer blanket that had been snagged by the upright shoots of the hedge when blown in the wind.

Spider Webs – 28 September 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

In the morning sunlight the fine threads were covered with an amazing array of tiny droplets of dew, it was as though someone had been out all night threading tiny iridescent beads onto the threads. In the morning sunshine each of these beads then reflected the sunlight in all directions, producing an array of tiny rainbows. A temporary but very beautiful effect that didn’t last long, for even this late in the year the morning dew does not last forever and the strength of the autumn sun soon evaporated them.

A Spider’s Web Covered in Iridescent Beads – 28 September 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)