More About Beech Leaves

Beech foot, Wapley Hill, November 20th 2008

The wind has changed direction; chopping firewood this afternoon the air seemed colder than it did this morning. The wind was from the east, straight down the valley from the Welsh hills, rattling the last of the beech leaves and the ash keys in the courtyard. The air smelled colder as well, a cleaner smell. Now at 7.30pm it has clouded over so the crispness is gone, and the wind has died, but it is still cool.

A good morning spent hunting for firewood on Wapley Hill. Gunfire and pheasants on the lower slopes, dogwalkers, and horses on the narrow Stansbatch road. In the week since we have been there the beech trees - on long avenues across the hill - have lost their leaves completely; the ground is covered in crisp, golden-bronze leaves, still dry. The paths have disappeared under the leaves, drifting the ground, as if under a light fall of snow with the same sense of vulnerability and impermanency. The leaves had been blown into these drifts and were far more 'solid' than they appear. But there were strange bald patches where the wind is stronger and the leaves don't settle.

It made me realise that the days are still shortening and the sun is lower in the sky every day. Half a mile down the beech avenue the sun came out, horizontal beams deep into the woods, lighting the smooth grey trunks. I have noticed beech trees more than anything this autumn, the beech-colours have been spectacular. And this morning the leaves were everywhere, drowning the path, blurring the definition of the avenue, smoothing everything apart from the trunks rising from the bronze floor like elephants' feet or the claws of giant birds.