A Walk in the Park

I had two appointments this morning, by chance both on opposite sides of one of Milan's big central parks. The first one finished earlier than I expected, and I found myself with forty five minutes to kill. It was a glorious day - about fifteen degrees, bright sunshine and a clear blue sky, and instead of jumping on the tram as I'd planned, I decided to walk through the park.



I knew the trees were going to be stupendous even before I got inside, and I wasn't disappointed. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me, but I rushed around picking up leaves (good job I didn't have to open my briefcase when I got to my next client) for the scanner. Yes, I know I'd promised myself I wasn't going to spend any more time playing with the scanner when I should be working, but it was stronger than I was.




The yellow leaves are gingko - the tree I talked about in the last post. But I'm not sure about the others. Trees are not my strong point- I can manage the most common British ones but that's about all. The pointy one is perhaps some sort of maple? And the green and yellow ones are lime? But I give up on the red ones. They're about five inches long, and the ones that hadn't yet turned red were a bright orange colour. For some reason it didn't come out well on the scanner, so I excluded them from the pictures.

Autumn

Autumn is full swing here now, although up to now temperatures have still been fairly mild - it's about 10° today, and that's more or less the lowest daytime temperature we've had. But it's been quite windy some days and the leaves are falling fast - I've been collecting them for scanner photos.

I wished I'd had my camera yesterday as I went down a road lined with gingko trees. Gingkos are used quite a lot in Milan as roadside trees and in the autumn are just a mass of yellow leaves. I was on the bus unfortunately, so couldn't steal one for the scanner. I'll have to find time to go back ...

For those of you who asked, I've still not been able to make the Chrysanthemum photo from a couple of posts ago clickable. I don't know why. These ones aren't either, so it must be something to do with them coming from the scanner and not the camera.

I'm still swamped with work and have hardly put my nose out on the balcony this week. I must find the time this weekend as there are bulbs still to be planted and things need moving into their winter positions. I suspect that when the temperature does drop it will do so with a vengeance.

The change in the birds that are around is a sure sign of winter coming. The starlings that a couple of weeks ago were massed in hundreds of thousands over the city are now long gone, and this morning I saw a robin in the garden. The one we had last year (the same, or this one's Dad?) had clearly established the horse chestnut tree outside my bedroom window as the centre of his territory. All through the winter I was woken up at 2 am by his singing. I'd wake up and lie snug in bed listening to this beautiful liquid song. I hope he comes back this year ...