It's dusk  when we walk Bramble in the evening now and dark by the time we get home, seranaded by the Tawny Owls in the woods. It's harder to get up in the mornings too, dark and chilly with mist curling down the hill. The leaves are turning yellow on the trees, I can hear them falling as I'm weeding the vegetable bed. We have a mouse, a vole and a shrew using the same hole in the wall of the house; they are very fond of spaghetti, we put a little in the entrance last night when we made the most of the late evening sun to eat our tea outside. We could hear them squeaking inside the wall.

The hawthorns and rowans are covered in berries and colourful fungi are sprouting in woods, fields and hedgebottoms, welcome food for our wildlife. The young pheasants have all been released  and look comical sprinting around the fields after insects, like big chickens as they haven't got their tails yet. On Tuesday we went for a walk in Gisburn Forest and the paths were covered in flying ants. .