Friday, July 26

In the last week one of the big trees in the garden has started shedding leaves as though a sudden and secret autumn has arrived.

A couple of days ago I spent all afternoon raking the leaves up to reconstruct the appearance of summer. This morning I did it again, and this time it only took about thirty minutes. I noticed one red and gold leaf on the terrace and stopped to photograph it.

I then had a thought. I wondered if the leaves landed looking like this or whether they landed as green leaves and became red and gold as the hot sun poured down on them. I put a fallen green leaf in a pot where (hopefully) the wind will not blow it away, and I shall look later today to see what has happened.

If anything.