Changing, not falling

[puddleshark]

The rain let up at last. I suppose it had to, unless it was planning to rain for eternity (and there were times this week when that seemed a distinct possibility). So I blew the dust off my camera, put on my wellies, and headed for a walk in the woods on the ridge above Affpuddle.





Following the bridleways through the conifers and the beeches:










Hard Fern.






The leaves on the beeches turning, not falling.




Sweet Chestnut.




Beech.

Everywhere is sodden, after Storm Ciaran following on the heels of one of the wettest Octobers on record. The woods are sodden, the tracks are sodden. The riverside meadows are underwater. A typical Dorset November, in other words. It's fine. My wellies are not leaking. I have safety tested them.

The toadstools are happy with this mild wet weather. So many puffballs and toadstools in the woods. But I had the wrong lens on the camera for fungi - a wide angle lens for photographing trees. (Always the way, with DSLR cameras. Whichever lens you take on an expedition, you are sure to come across the perfect subject requiring a different lens).


Parasol Mushrooms. Not quite as huge as the wide angle lens makes them appear - I mean, you couldn't shelter under one in a rainstorm, unless you were a pixie. But over a foot tall: far too big and tough to be edible, and have thus escaped the foragers.




The paths through the woods very quiet. I met only a pair of horseriders and their dogs. A gentleman whose two unruly black setters came bounding up and left friendly pawprints all over my trousers and my camera bag. (Not that I minded in the least. I miss having muddy pawprints on my trousers).

In places, pairs of large concrete blocks have been placed at the entrance to the bridleways to stop the four wheel drive fraternity trespassing and trashing the tracks. But, judging from the depth of the ruts along some of the tracks, this doesn't always work. When one way is blocked, no doubt the 4WDs find another way in. But the blocks are handy for sitting on in the sunshine, drinking coffee from a thermos.