Autumn has been a season of extremes, cold enough for snow on the tops, wet enough for flooding.  The Saturday the fell race was abandoned because of the atrocious conditions, the Sheep and Wool Centre just down the road and Cockermouth School were sheltering hundreds of participants, taking cover from the atrocious conditions.

From the back field view point, normally the river can be identified from the greenery along its banks: that weekend you could see the trees growing in the middle of the water.  The beck here was the highest ever, but fortunately stayed within its banks.  Others were not so lucky.  There were floods in fields and houses close to the river.  The ground is saturated after the wet summer, so there is nowhere for the water to go, apart from where it should not.  Even in the fields, the late bales of hay were sitting in water, looking black and unnatural as if floating in a pond.

Of course, immediately after that dramatic weekend, the sun came out and it was a glorious week.  Autumn brings clear skies, bluer than in the summer, white topped fells, and brilliant golden sunlight, so that it often seems the most beautiful of the seasons.  At night the stars burn clear and bright, with the Milky Way stretched across the blackness.

A hare has made its home on the banks of the pond, rushing out at top speed when approached, away into the next field where it can lay low until the interlopers have gone.  One morning recently a deer appeared on the back field, quietly grazing.  From its auburn colour it could have been a fox, until its graceful form and leap over the gate revealed its nature.  Once away, it looked back as if to say 'Move away please, so I can come back.  You are only in my way there'.  They are so bold when they know no one will trouble them.

Last night the barn owl was sitting in a tree on the far side of the hump back bridge.  It is so long since he was sighted that it seemed perhaps he had moved away or had died.  But no, he was large and white, and quietly contemplating a fox crossing the road directly beneath him.  Some visitors recently said they had seen a dead mouse under the barn owl house here, so perhaps he is considering moving in.

On to winter now.  Last year the frosts were so heavy the ground was as white as if covered with snow, winter as it should be.  Already this year the pond has had an ice sheet on it even mid afternoon.  So perhaps we can look forward to a winter of snow and ice and beauty, with sledging on the fells having enough cushion to make falling off quite enjoyable.