It has been a long and lovely autumn with some of the best autumn color I have seen in many years. The day before Storm Angus arrived was glorious, crisp, cold and sunny and the tulip tree looked quite wonderful and at its most golden, with just the occasional leaf detaching itself and drifting gently downwards. Then, during the night, as predicted, we were hit by storm force winds and all that beauty was blown away in a few hours and now carpets the ground. Next task to rake them all up and put them on the leaf heap which will look more like a mountain than a heap by the time we have finished. I’m planning to throw a net over it to stop it redistributing itself when the next storm arrives. And much as I mourn the loss of the leaves, it won’t be long before the first bulbs start to push through the ground to remind me that spring is an equally beautiful season.