The Thief of Time.

I have an essay to write. I've already spent all of last weekend working on it but I fear that what I've written is not what "they're" looking for. I've also written too much. Before taking it to pieces and re-writing it I decided to procrastinate by sharing some October photos.

I often take my camera with me on my daily trips into town but I've been a little self-conscious about taking photos when so many others can see me. Silly I know. However, I took a different route back to the train station the other day and was stopped in my tracks by a piece of amazing, unexpected and huge street art. Other people were taking photos so I was happy to join in.

A robin for Country Mouse who is still out there somewhere.

 Big feet. The next photo will show you just how big...

 Big!

 Here's the robin in situ. The little bit of parked car gives a sense of scale.

 Boo! Capercaillie and red squirrel.

 Blue tit (and some scribbles, honestly, some people...)

 Another squirrel, some deer and a fox (and more cars).

 This photo's just to give an idea of the location, the artwork is painted on to the backs of buildings adjoining a car park.

Hedgehog for N (who loves hedgehogs).

 And a worm at the end.

 A little further on and I passed the Duke of Wellington. He's well known for wearing his traffic cone hat (have a look here!), today the horse has one too.

Another new thing for me since returning to Uni - a pair of slim jeans with boots worn over the top. Radical it's not, but it's a big change from my usual bootcut/flared jeans hiding my footwear. The boots (of leather (writing that brings the Velvet Underground song to mind, not really appropriate here!)) were a bargain £49 from Matalan. Some observations on current female student fashion - no one wears bootcuts, it's all skinny jeans (I didn't quite go that far) or little skirts. There is rather a lot of hair around and I'm a little jealous. I keep mine in a bob as it's prematurely grey and I find it easier to dye it when it's fairly short. No, I'm not ready to let the grey show yet, for the simple reason that it's beyond grey - the front roots are white and I'm still "only" in my forties, and early forties at that. People with great facial features and style can pull it off, not me. Anyway, back to the students. They all like to pile their hair up on their heads in funny little messy buns. Interesting. I'd give it a go if I were younger and had more hair. One more thing - they're all much taller than when I was a student first time round. At 6ft I no longer feel I stick out like a sore thumb, at least for my height. There are a few other older people on the course, I don't think I'm the oldest. There are over 700 of us altogether (primary + secondary - some lectures are mixed) so I've not actually met everybody yet...

Now back to some more of the usual stuff, a couple of garden pics...

 The cosmos seedlings I planted way back in May have finally flowered, yay!

 A hoverfly visits.

 More beasties on an anemone which appeared further up the garden.

 The patio, with a pelargonium still in flower.

 Garden snail going slightly rusty.

And to finish, a fly agaric, spotted in the park by N & I after dropping A off at Brownies one evening. It was already quite dark, hence the flash. Our pockets at this point were stuffed with conkers, we'd collected them till we could no longer see what we were doing. A bumper crop this year.