Autumn colours at Coombe Wood

This afternoon I had a slow walk - coughing most of the way but it was great to get out in the sunshine. I didn't even mind a couple of light showers during my journey. I'm glad I timed my walk when I did - there were several heavy downpours before and afterwards

A couple of fish jumped and splashed in the water as I passed the pond making ripples and distorting reflections on the clear surface. A large fish came extremely close, swimming into very shallow water. I was impressed by its reverse swimming

I brushed against several spiders webs that I hadn't noticed while concentrating on taking photos. Funny how I'm not bothered by spiders when I'm behind the camera - but wouldn't react so calmly to getting spiders or their webs on me if I wasn't taking photos at the time

The gardener was working in the flower beds to the right of the gate digging out plants. It's a shame they have to go before some of them are finished but the beds need to be ready for bulb planting soon

Tiny moss

This might be a mahonia. The flowers are very small and from a distance you can just see sprays of little orange flowers. You have to get much closer to see the vibrant magenta stems.

The gardeners wheelbarrow-cart

This is what is left of the lily of the valley

Rosehips

 These berries look as if they have been frosted

and these little oval berries look as if they have been highly polished

The overflowing bank of daisies has lasted for most of the year and still looks good

Yew berries

No sign of the golden rain tree seed pods

Purple tinged grass seeds

The last few echinacea buds

Rowan berries (I think)

Pampas grass

From a distance I thought some of these seed pods had opened and were showing their red linings and seeds. Then I looked closer - not seed pods at all - leafy bits (very technical) with neatly spaced baby snails

Clusters of pale orange berries against purple tinged leaves

There were a couple of light showers of rain while I was out. Big water droplets hung from these lemon shaped red berries

Are you fed up with the banana flower? Sorry - here it is again. A snail had taken shelter under one of the big petals

Shafts of light illuminated leaves 

and made webs glisten

 More spindle berries have opened

I'm still waiting for these to open

These small berries look like little red apples 

A closer look at the spindle berries

Orange leaves. Is this an azalea I wonder? Are those brown pods what's left from the yellow scented flowers? Possibly - although the leaves on the bigger one next to it (which I know is a yellow scented azalea) haven't turned orange yet so I'm not sure if this is a different plant

Purple Michaelmas daisies

More little pale orange berries

Flower beds being cleared. The lovely smell of freshly dug soil

Oval berries by the gate. I wonder what colour these will be later on

Thank you very much for joining me

All sorts

DAILY MINI DRAWINGS: update
September - three quarters of the way to my goal of a mini drawing a day for a year

ONE COOMBE WOOD WALK

I only managed one walk last week. A feverish cold put me out of action and has left me with an exhausting and rather dramatic cough

As I parked in the overflow car park I noticed fluffy seeds hanging low over the car 

Each "flower" had become a cluster of red seeds with a plume of feathery silver coming from each seed

Low afternoon sun lit up some autumnal colours around the pond where big dark dragonflies flitted about much too fast to be caught on camera

An abstract of shadows and reflections with little blue petals floating in the water

Shades of red, orange and brown

An abundance of shiny red berries

Acrobatic spiders  at work. This one was creating a rather unconventional pattern

Honesty seeds have dropped from their papery casings, which are now disintegrating, leaving empty loops which remind me of broken wire framed spectacles

On this tiny flower stalk each individual trumpet opens into a cup of pink petals supporting a small green segmented ball, slightly open at the centre. Each segment of the ball has a tuft at the top which together give the impression that each one is wearing a dainty crown

Low sunshine through petals and leaves

Rich autumn colours lit up by the sun

The banana flower is smaller now - layers of petals which open wide over a few days drop off and quickly turn brown in the same way that the peel from the banana would turn brown. Then the next layer opens

Stepping back a little to see the stem and the tiny bananas further up the stem

and still a little further back to see the flower in its sheltered position among the leaves and branches

The Callicarpa berries are plumping up and turning darker purple. I know I have mentioned before that I have never seen as many berries on this plant before

There's a cluster of berries at almost every leaf joint. Quite an impressive sight

So often we hurry to our destination looking straight ahead or perhaps side to side - without looking up or down. 

On the ground - sunlight on fallen leaves

I paused several times to look up through the branches and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the sun lighting up the colourful leaves

Around one corner these burgundy, red, orange heart shaped leaves stopped me in my tracks for while

Large clusters of puff ball mushrooms have grown together so tightly that they are becoming distorted. Several have burst open - perhaps on their own or maybe with the help of animals, birds or a passer by

 Several have been uprooted

Some that were growing on the path have been trampled but many are flourishing

I'm still keeping an eye on these seed pods to see what they are going to do next

The spindle berries were looking spectacular in the sunshine. Many more are dropping their orange berries down on threads to hang below their red pods

I held one pod gently in my hand to have a closer look but let go very quickly as a large spider abseiled down onto it, tickling my finger as it landed and making me jump out of my skin

Sunshine on fallen leaves

Tiny threads of gold where pollen has stuck to fragments of spiders webs

Bright berries against the blue sky

A mass of tiny purple flowers 

Seed heads by the pond

SNAKE GOURD
The one remaining Snake Gourd plant that I had kept indoors, away from slugs and snails which had gobbled up the other two plants, had grown a tiny snake gourd that looked like a very small bean. The "bean" is filling out a bit now and I'm still hoping that it will grow large enough to get seeds from, so I can give some to friends who would also like to grow an unusual plant with crazy flowers

The dead flower is still hanging onto the end of the baby snake gourd

The plant is still flowering with its crazy frayed looking flowers but all of the flowers except for one (so far) have dropped off and come to nothing

The tendrils fascinate me - they twist into such incredibly neat curls

Thank you very much for joining me