Autumn is making itself felt. Steady streams of yellow and brown leaves are wafting along in the breeze, and it's been threatening to rain all day. You can feel a sort of heavy dampness, an occaisional raindrop, and the trees obey the stimulus in time-honoured fashion.

As autumns go, this one is proving to be a bit more colourful that ususal. Don't know why, maybe it's all that fresh CO2 we humans have been making that has invigorated the trees with autumnal splendour?

Drive a car today. Make your tree happy.

Saturday Night

Saturday was a little odd. I've experienced a few saturdays in my time, but this one was different somehow. It felt quiet, as Swindon was having the day off, and I have absolutely no idea why that was the case.

Of saturday night was saturday, and that's all right for doing congas in the street. I'm sure they were having a great time but why did they do that outside my home? Everyone seems to. It isn't as if I'm a party animal (though I have my moments). I've had a look but I can't see a "Congas Mandatory After 00:30am" sign anywhere. Or did they take it home with them in drunken delerium.? I do hope so. Because tonight, of all nights, I would like to get some sleep.

An Extra Hour!

For once in my life I remembered that the clocks went back an hour last night, leaving me with an extra hour of snooze time to enjoy. The endless debate on whether British Summer Time is a good idea rages on, and every year the tv news debates the issue. The same arguments all over again. rather like congas every weekend. Lots of noise and fuss but no-one goes anywhere.

A Strange Sight

This morning i strolled along the back lanes of Okus. Most of it is nothing more than residential housing, some a little shabby, others renovated and sparkling, usually in unison with the type and polish of the car parked outside.

I also happened to pass the housing estate built on the site of the old hospital. Apartment blocks never quite look friendly in the British town, but at least the area has been tarted up with grass verges and young trees. It was almost looking like a pleasant place to live, even if the architecture was a bit cold. Look over the brick wall halfway along and you can see the upper floors of what the estate actually is. Even colder, a festival of bland and angled style that looks more like a shopping centre than a place to live.

That said, I turned down an alleyway that leads to what was once an old quarry, now host to a series of flats and houses in somewhat more natural and agreeable repose. Then I noticed a tree by the fence next to me. A silver birch, it's branches lopped off by some maniac tree surgeon, but for all intents and purposes, seeming quite dead.

Then I spotted the fungi. Loads of it, forming shelves up and down the trunk, almost camouflaged against a tree the same colour. Perfectly natural of course, but it struck what a rare sight that was. Almost alien, and certainly I've never seen a tree with so much fungo growing on it before.

Just thought I'd mention it.