Autumn is here; leaves, wind, rain, red berries, blackberries, and mysterious Oyster mushrooms growing in shelf-like clusters on decaying beech wood. Snow is on the way. It comes slowly, though, in the form of rain and fog and mist, the blue-sky days ebbing, and rain, rain, rain, soaking and saturating.
Not all the leaves have been scattered by the wind and the rain. The branches still bear individual leaves, hanging like lone decorations, weather tattered.
Dark canopies of gnarled trees stand like sentinels beside the stream which slides smoothly through the valley. They overlap and intermingle, shading the ground in varying degrees. The landscape itself is carpeted with dense layers of fallen leaves while coruscating shafts of sunlight probe the depths, penetrating to the woodland floor.
All is stillness and peace as the sun sparkles through the foliage, making the oaks and the hazel beneath them seem lit from within – making the very shadows tremble. If you stopped and breathed in, an exotic collection of scents, scents of earth and grass and moss and fungi and leaves, permeate everything.