Up the road, afternoon (Monday).

Returning, I see bonfire smoke;  Tom, back indoors, says it is about finished.

I go down anyway, to kick the ashes and throw stray twigs and roots into the embers.

Up the road, lunchtime.

We may hate the first day of hunting, but Molly loves it, with  rank, smelly hunters' dogs perfuming every verge and corner, and a pheasant whirring up from the ditch.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

Near the carpark, a flat, palm-sized stone is surrounded by fragments of spiral snailshells, bronze and yellow and Roman, together with many goblets of acorns, twigs and curled brown leaves.

Up the road, late afternoon.

Leaving, I deadhead some dried-blood red flowers of the windowbox geraniums, drying and autumnal now but still blooming. Coming back, I pick and eat a single ripe russet cherry tomato.

Kerbiriou, morning

We go down the lane once more before leaving, and look down to the harbour and headland at Terenez and across the bay for perhaps the last time this year.

Down the road, evening

You really can't beat Hopkins' 'dappled with damson west' for the clouds at sunset on days like this, when they seem like a bloom on the skin of the sky.

Up the road, afternoon

A wheatear, bold white rump and black tail tip, bobs onto a nearby fence, then to an overhead wire, then a tree, watching me.  Charming, not least because of its name.

Down the road, morning / Approach to Bogard, afternoon.

1. Every curl on the young bullock's sidelong face stands out in the dewy morning light.

2.  A single pale dog violet, strange and unseasonable, flowers next to fallen yellow poplar leaf.

Down the road, evening.

Things are done that can't be undone and I'll see you no more, yet clouds flock to the west, swallows call and the sun bursts, and joy won't be denied.

Approach to Bogard, morning.

Looking across the Arcadian pools and pasture to the chateau, with its Enlightenment gables and wings and pediments, and seeing a yellow van of La Poste rolling past it at speed.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

This arboretum specialises in different oaks - the etymology of 'Quessoy' is related to an old word for 'oak'.  A saw-tooth leafed (?) species recalls how closely they are related to sweet chestnuts.

Up the road, afternoon.

The Russian woman's house door is open, and some shoes and a small, deep blue glass vase stand on the step.  But she herself is still not to be seen.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

Amongst the samey overcooked foliage of the season and the river's low-running sludginess, a bed of hydrangeas, blues and whites, and purple heathers flowering makes a welcome splash of colour.

Up the road, afternoon.

Victor's dahlias are in full swing in the patch in front of his concrete breeze wall.  Some of them are perfectly balanced bicolours, like stylised red and white cauliflowers.

Up the road, morning.

At this time, you can walk into pools of shadow which are virgin shade, not yet touched by the sun.  They have a deeper, cooler, more intense feel to them.