The recent heavy rains have suddenly filled the drought-dried lake at Pilley. This prompted me to circumperambulate it on our forest drive this morning.





Fresh autumn leaves floated among rippling reflections or

broken limbs from their trees,

or lay visible on the shallow bed;

Mallards, glimpsed through overhanging lichen covered branches and their lingering foliage, have reclaimed their natural habitat.

Some of the leaves cluster among mini mushrooms between mossy or

exposed roots and bark flakes from fallen trees on the water-lapped banks.
This evening Jackie and I joined Shelly, Ron, Helen, and Bill at Fordingbridge for the latter couple’s church fundraising quiz night. Helen provided sandwiches, mince, pies, gala pie, crisps, salad and wine; Ron brought beer. We had a very enjoyable time with good natured competition, at which we came third.
On our journey home the steady rain accompanying our outward trip had developed into a deluge, in which the rhythmic whirring of our windscreen wipers could not clear the shield of raindrops that became twinkling stars above parallel columns of light stretched along the tarmac before the headlights of each oncoming vehicle, while our own beams illuminated the fanned curtains of spray thrown up by our wheels from pools across the road to rival the swollen lake seen this morning.