The sky has been brown here all day, it’s either been raining or threatening to rain….and our poor house has no roof on it – I do hope it’s not suffering too much. We’ve been fretting more than a bit about its fate during this week and are extremely anxious – every time the phone rings we’re expecting a Cornish accent to tell us we have no ceilings in the bedrooms! Ah well, what will be will be.

I took a walk to post a letter and saw these leaves blown down into a puddle from our Coral Bark Acer in the front garden. That little tree has been glorious all year round. We planted it in the front of our new driveway last spring to ‘replace’ a couple of Philadelphus’ that were taken out to make way for the new drive. I was heartbroken that they couldn’t be saved so I planted a new one in the back garden and this acer and some Lavateras in the front. It’s quite amazing how much protection from the sun those trees gave us – it’s been noticeable how much hotter the sitting room gets since they were removed.

This tree has been spectacular. In January it looked like this, in the summer like this and late summer like this. But now, at the time when I’d expect it to be glorious autumn colours, the leaves are just shrivelling and sad looking. These ones have been blown off the tree prematurely and still have something of their charm about them despite being drowned in a polluted rainwater puddle on the tarmac of our street. I thought their valour should be captured so here they are!

The bright red of their stems is so full of joy (well to my jaded eyes anyway) that I felt it necessary to capture the moment.