Country lane in autumn

We were on our way to deepest East Northamptonshire to visit an elderly entomologist who's in the throes of selling his house to move in with his new lady love in Yorkshire - a shipboard romance that blossomed over the past two years and will culminate in a spring wedding. Despite his age, he sparkled with the excitement of it all.

We bimbled about in his wonderful workroom, and he sorted out various items of equipment that he wanted to pass on to Pete - a couple of books, over 2000 tubes, a couple of boxes of jars, some reagents, a long (really long!) handled pruner, a malaise trap and a fogger that was last used in the tropical rain forest. It was a bit like looking into the future, imagining the work that would be required to clear our house of all it's books and equipment - though I suspect a lot will be passed on to Chris.

I hadn't managed to take any photographs earlier in the day, as I was too busy writing a talk I'm giving tomorrow, but just had to stop the car in the middle of the road (it was a very quiet lane) to catch this burst of autumn colour, through a rather dirty windscreen I should add!