Sunrise

Today is one of the special days of the year, the day that, in the great annual cycle of the heavens, we see the sunrise from our house for the first time since spring as it moves steadily southwards towards its winter solstice. In a few days the sun will be rising along the horizon to the right of this picture.

So it seems appropriate that this first sunrise of the winter season coincided with the first ground frost of the autumn, one which coated the grass of the lawns and picked out the gossamer shrouding the gorse. Not that it lasted long. Within seconds of the sun touching it, ice became became water, big drops forming to sparkle like a tiara - if only for a few minutes before they evaporated.

The day then followed the example of the last three, with the sun warming a world without a cloud in the sky, but warming it just enough for a limited range of butterflies to appear. Yesterday we saw two painted ladies and no fewer than four red admirals, but saw no sign of peacocks, tortoiseshells or whites - except for the large white's caterpillars which are still munching contentedly through our precious broccoli. And today the butterflies were even more scarce, just one red admiral and one painted lady.

Each evening, the butterflies have disappeared to the secret places where they can survive another cold night, leaving the garden robin to sing the joys of having a territory of his own.