the running wave

As September slips away, the autumn colours are really beginning to show.  They are glowing and delicious!  The berries on the wayfarer tree are like jewels, and the sumptuous colours in the rosebay willow herb have now switched from flower to leaf.

I was in the Botanics, in Edinburgh, last Sunday.  It was a lovely early autumn afternoon and amongst the many treasures to be found, I picked out these for this post.

I did go back!

It's been far too long since I (and the running wave) visited my favourite beach so yesterday afternoon's walk was very welcome.  In the company of my daughter and her six children (two in papooses) we walked a good length of the beach.  It was almost high tide so half the beach was out of reach, but there was still a good stretch to cover. This is the best spot.  This is my elected place to spend eternity.  On top of the dune, with the waves breaking below and the wind through the marram grass and sea buckthorn - where could be better?

An enjoyable early Autumn walk this afternoon, in one of my favourite places.  I never tire of the view from this hillside, and with Edinburgh Castle on the western horizon and light shining along the Firth of Forth, I went in search of damsons.  They are there, but not quite ripe enough to collect today.  I'll be back though!  Delicious little flavour-packed plums and far too good to miss.  I have been looking forward to picking them all year! If Radio 3 can launch their Christmas carol competition for budding amateur composers, I can definitely post this photo without apology.  I will definitely be back for these ripening berries - if the birds don't beat me to it between now and mid-December!

So they've gone now.  The last of the swallows, about fifty of them, left on 4 September.  They are probably over France somewhere by now.   Our skies seem very empty without them, despite the daily gangs of starlings (not enough for a murmuration) and finches, the ever-present flock of seagulls, a few curlew and some oystercatchers.   Roll on springtime.