Although the Autumn Equinox isn't until 22/23 September, the leaves are already turning and falling. In fact, Autumn used to be called Fall here in England during the 17th century, and I know it is the term still popularly used in America for this glorious season of the year. My youngest asked me to take a picture of him with this yellow Maple leaf this afternoon on my Wednesday walk in our local park. I was planning on a walk along the Thames river but the universe had other plans for me, and so a Thames walk will have to wait for next week 😊.
On the drive to fetch my boys from school, I found myself stopped in a queue of cars outside the park, with a van at the front. The cause of the traffic jam; a small black Daschund stood in the middle of the road, looking rather bewildered and not budging. The van driver got out and approached the poor thing but it got scared and ran across the road and up the path into the park. I was so torn as to what to do... pull over and go find the dog or continue and go fetch my boys from school? Already running slightly late, I had little time to think as I was holding up traffic myself and so pushed on to the school intent on coming straight back to look for the dog, and if I found him, to take him to our local vet for a microchip check.
I popped a note on our local village chat in case he was still missing (his human family may well have been in the park with him and found him already) so that people would know his last whereabouts, and 25 minutes later, kids in tow, I arrived back at the park and we went in search of the little guy. Sadly despite searching for about an hour and a half, and asking around, nobody had seen him and we saw no sign of him either😢
We walked down the "secret" pathway on the far right-hand side of the park, in the area I had seen the dog heading.
We walked the length and breadth of the park even exiting the top end to go and have a look around the Park Hall site.
The kids looked under the "Christmas tree" too. It's a gorgeous big tree in front of the Hall entrance that is decorated every year for the festive season. The village has an evening of Christmas caroling around the tree and a visit from Santa too.
Behind the Park Hall is a War memorial to the local fallen soldiers of WWII. The kids spent some time walking around it and examining the plaques with all the names and looking at the large poppy garlands at the foot of the memorial statue.
Walking the perimeter I saw a man seated on a bench with his back to us and his guitar leaning against the back of the bench. I couldn't resist surreptitiously getting a quick pic, with my youngest almost blowing my cover! "Mummy, what are you doing taking a picture of that man and his guitar?" at a volume reserved solely for the use of children🤣 I knelt down beside him and explained what I was doing artistically and asked that he didn't share "everything" with the world around us as I didn't want the gentleman to get annoyed with us. At this, my son looked at me quizzically and then at the same volume said "Mummy, why are you taking photos of that boring big building in front of the man with the guitar?" 😂😝🙄🎻
We did a little nosy around the bushes and nearby tree clusters and we were just about to head back into the park to finish our search for the dog there when the gentleman on the bench, who was now strumming his guitar, called us over. He was curious as to what we were looking for and after we told him, he replied, " I tell you what, I found a cat the other day". He spoke really slowly and seemed to struggle a bit with communication and I could see that he had some form of disability, but he seemed lonely and just wanted to chat for a bit so we stayed for a few minutes before going back into the park.
We ended up at the children's mini playground on the far end of the park. It's really for little ones but there was nobody else around when we arrived so my 8 and 10 year old boys jumped in and had a go on the swings, see-saw, and slide🙃
Then a bit of people and dog watching on the way back to the car.
This last watercolour at my eldest's insistence after we returned home. It was his creative staging effort 💗
After the first "watercolour" effect I used on my photos (which I came across quite by accident on my phone), the kids were quite taken and wanted to do lots of different poses for me "in watercolour" in the park! And so I thought it only appropriate to post our Wednesday Walk photos in "watercolour" effect as, aside from the missing dog, this was the theme that drove the afternoon activities on our walk.
Here are a few with other effects that we tried:
