My wife and I have been noticing that the tree colours are more spectacular this year than ususual. Autumn or fall colours in North America (particularly in the NE) are more spectacular than in the UK due in part to different varieties of tree - loads of maples for example. When we lived in Bavaria it was wonderful to experience the Goldener Oktober especially near the Alps; the trees are similar varieties to the UK but seem to achieve a better colour through a sharper change in termperature. I do not know why our trees look so good this year - we have only had one frost and it is mild - but they look great.

Regrettably we have not got out for walks recently with various trips for our kids, a funeral and an 18th birthday. However yesterday was a glorious sunny day so we managed to get out after church. We went to Danebury hill fort near Middle Wallop. This is one of the most accessible iron age hill forts but the hill also happens to be covered with beeches. Beeches are one of the best trees to see at this time of the year.

We had limited time so chose to walk around the outside of the hillfort rather than wander into the middle. While there are some things I do not like about American English, one thing I do like is the use of 'Fall' rather than 'Autumn'. It is the older English word, presumably somebody a few hundred years ago thought that a French word would be posher, and I think has a beautiful symmetry with 'Spring'. Spring and Fall are often our most beautiful seasons when our deciduous trees show delicate green or golden/brown colours respectively.

Danebury has a large inner rampart/ditch pair and a smaller outer rampart/ditch and out path went outside the outer ditch.

Beeches can be seen for more or less the whole work. After taking this picture, I handed my camera to my wife, then surreally a young woman with long, light brown hair and wearing just a crop top and sports shorts walked by with her dog. While the sun felt warm the air temperature (back at my car) was only 12 C; she obviously felt the heat more than we did.

We kept seeing beautiful views of the beeches. The photo above shows the final brown stage of the beech leaves. In other cases the leaves were at a green or golden stage. With a clear blue sky and sunlight there were many stunning upward views. In many cases the leaves had a lovely backlighting.

This photo shows the leaves at green, golden and brown stages.

Further on we tried to take pictures from the inner ditch. There were great views to some of the beech boughs, but they did not photograph so well. Underfoot there were already plenty of leaves and we often saw toadstools poking their "stools" through the leaves.

Fungi are not my strong point, so I have no idea what these were and whether or not they are poisonous!

At the end of the walk we just walked to the entrance of the hillfort where there was one splendid lone beech. On walking to the trunk and looking upwards my wife suddenly said "look at that". In the shadow I first thought a squirrel had squezed nuts into cracks in the trunk but it was a large group of snails hanging there.

We then returned to prepare lunch - spicy lamb and couscous - but it was a superb day. We truly saw creation it all its glory.