Mellow Autumnness

This autumn is proving to be as beautiful as the summer was. Yes, we've had some rain but on the whole it has been mostly dry and even warm at times, like today when the sun came out in the afternoon and it was almost 18 degrees Celsius. I took the opportunity to wander around the garden where some of the roses are on their second flowering, an almost unheard of feat! Above is Queen Elizabeth.

Then I entered the fenced part of the garden where the chickens roam safe from assault by the greyhound. All the trees there were planted by us some 18 years ago now and it remains miraculous to me that those tiny seedlings are now towering far over our heads. At the top of the garden there is a little forest of evergreens with a true forest floor.

But what I noticed most today was the wealth of toadstools and mushrooms all around. We've never seen the like before. I'm woefully ignorant about them so have no idea of their proper names nor whether or not they are edible and I'm not even going to attempt to learn and will leave them to adorn the grass rather than the frying pan.

The details on them are beautiful specially when you consider that the above specimen was less than 2" in diameter.

 Some are rather larger like the one above and water had gathered inside reflecting the sky.

At the same time more and more leaves are turning, some to red, yellow and orange and others to rich purple and plum. Autumn is definitely golden at the moment.