On the Other Hand...

... yesterday - Remembrance Sunday - was a gloriously sunny autumn day, the sky cloudless and intensely blue, the sunlight sweet and mellow, the trees in all their golden coppery glory. I spent a long while sitting in a kind of natural bower, surrounded by purple dogwood under ash and birch, looking out over a small lake from which the sedge had not yet quite withered. Basking I was, in the first warm sunlight I'd felt on my face in weeks. It was still cool in the shade, but in the sun genuinely, warmingly warm - though, disappointingly, not quite warm enough to tempt any hibernating butterflies, even a Red Admiral, into a brief waking. Still, I was granted the sight (and sound) of a party of foraging goldcrests - which took me back to another occasion when these tiny, delightful birds appeared close at hand, an unlooked-for gift...