"So fair and foul a day I have not seen..." grumbles the ill-fated Macduff at the beginning of Shakespeare's Macbeth Play. It felt a little like that in Norfolk this weekend
I enjoyed two dramatically different walks among birch trees within twenty four hours; my first a gloriously golden morning showing off Autumn's golden cloak in all its finery and then, courtesy of Storm Angus, a brief, soggy wind and rainswept excursion which made Litcham common feel very much like a blasted heath.
A wet spring and mild autumn lacking the autumn storms we've had of late has enabled us to enjoy a glorious long-lived golden autumn foliage season this year. But with harsher, stormier weather approaching it may be time to say one last goodbye to autumn's rich vivid beauty and face the cold embrace of stark, hollow Winter, who, after lurking in the wings for a while and is now stretching out its dark frosty talons.
Golden light shining through the autumn canopy onto fallen leaves
A beautiful mature silver birch tree cloaked in sunlit golden leaves
A storm-swept silver birch sapling looses its leaves under leaden skies
Winter beckons