............slowly turning golden.
Because we have had such a very late autumn season I really hadn't given much thought to Christmas, which I now suddenly realise, is just over five weeks away.
Time to hastened to our local wood and enjoy autumn's golden splendour before the trees finally do turn bare. The woodland sits on the side of a high Cotswold escarpment immediately below where we live and overlooks a small hamlet down In the valley. A valley that is thought to have been occupied by a Roman General called Vespasian, who eventually became the 9th Emperor of Rome. He built himself a magnificent villa in the valley with one of the finest mosaics ever discovered north of the Alps - The Orpheus Pavement. Today the mosaic still lies exactly where it was crafted and conceived, hidden away, safe but intact, beneath the local churchyard.
A pathway leads us into our beautiful, predominantly, Beech woodland.
On entering it feels akin to stepping inside a cathedral. The soft grey trunks of the Beech trees soar upwards not unlike stone pillars which then form a delicate archway overhead.
The fallen leaves feel crisp and rustle beneath our feet bestowing a sense of peace and calm as we make our way below the trees. There are now two choices - a high or a low pathway. We opt for the lower.
As the late afternoon sun falls it lightens up the lower canopy, but it is now time to retrace our steps and make for home. 
The shadows lengthen,
and the leaves glow even brighter.