The Shire Transformed.

The Shire is moving into that dowdy late autumn stage now. Most of the trees still exhibiting some autumn colour are to the north-west beyond the river valley and are hidden by the lie of the land from my garden. The view I get now is one of nature going to rest.

The trees stand mostly stark, dark, and skeletal. The green of the pasture fields is turning dim, and most of the arable land has only just been tilled or is awaiting the process. Even those in which spring wheat and barley have been sown only exhibit the faint green tinge of new growth to ease the brown of bare earth.

But at around 4pm this evening I was topping up the birds’ feeding tables when something unusual happened.

It was just before sunset and a cloud cleared the sun which suddenly bathed this rustic piece of earth in golden light. Everything responded in an instant. The greens on the pastures turned warm and mellow, and the arable browns softened to a kinder hue. But the real difference was in the trees which became truly and spectacularly gilded with a most intense golden light. There they stood, proud and burnished as though some celestial artist had waved a hand and wrought the rarest of other-wordly transformation on a rural scene.

It lasted only a few minutes, but when it all faded the question had to be asked: ‘If this isn’t magic, what is?’