Fall

It was a wild and windy night last night, blasting the autumnal leaves from the trees. Tonight will perhaps be wilder still. So this is one of the last opportunities to admire the autumn colours before the leaves have all fallen. The leaves are building up in dense drifts under the woodland canopy or being blown onto the roads where they dance in the headlights of cars. Yesterday on Birkbeck Common I saw beech leaves on the moorland that had been blown more than a kilometre from the nearest tree.

It was a miserable day today for outdoor blippers, rain and unbroken cloud. I had a quick walk at lunchtime on the Helm outside Kendal. Cumbria is a wet place to live, but the climate suits mosses and liverworts. On wet days, the mosses of the old stone walls are at their most luxuriant, as seen here.

Fall is the word favoured in North America for this time of the year, while in Britain autumn is preferred. The word though was once more commonly used in Britain, and the first immigrants to North America brought the word with them holding onto it since, while it has fallen from common usage over here. It's the more descriptive term and I for one would like to see it used more widely.

A few people commented on the barn posted as a supplementary to yesterday's blip. So here is a view from the barn where we had our teleconference among the nettle beds and sheep poo.