Beautiful October days can overload the senses

RED October was the name of a film, I believe, to do with submarine warfare. These days, all over our island there is a clash of the reds, not the Reds of the Cold War but the natural colours of the landscape, the gradations from the russet of bracken on mountainsides and on the stonechat’s breast, to the red of holly on the forest edge and the reddening breast of the robin which, only a few months ago, was drab and faded.

There are reds of all shades. The wine reds of haws, so dense they form blocks of colour, the reds of fuchsia, for many still remain on the branch although the leaves are gone, the reds of, yes, I’m afraid, knotweed looking elegant as always as it marches destructively in every direction anywhere it has gained the smallest foothold; the dazzling reds of rowan berries against china-blue October skies, and the shiny reds on the flower stalks of arum lilies, we came upon as a surprise in the darkness of the trees.

And, of course, there are the leaves of the trees themselves, fallen to earth, staining the ground beneath with (as Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, called it) October blood.