First Arctic Wind

After a wonderful summer, autumn has been unseasonably mild, and continues to produce colours rivalling those I remember in North America.  Most leaves have fallen now, but the last golden show of beech continues to stand out amongst faded oaks.

 

Returning from a trip to Cotswolds, where hedgerows are awash with old man’s beard, I find little along the byways of Gower; here it seems to be more common on the limestone in the sheltered parts of west Gower. In the sand dunes at Nicholaston dunes, swathes of its white, fluffy seeds coat the slacks with a beautiful silky hue. At the back of the dunes, the sheer cliff face at the western end of Crawley Wood looks asleep. The trees clinging to the rocks appear lifeless, there’s not a breath of wind, no leaves fall to the ground, and only wood pigeons call from the wood.  A raven croaks as it flies overhead, and on the beach, a few gulls disturb the silence.

There’s a cold Arctic wind forecast for the weekend, and maybe a little snow in the north. This first cold snap of winter will probably put an end to our false sense of well-being, and the last of autumn’s colours may well fall to the ground. We could then get the first redwings of the winter on our village green, but it really needs to get much colder before this happens. On the other hand, the cold snap may never reach us. Sheltered from the northerly winds, we usually miss most of the bad weather.