One by one, the colours of autumn have faded. Only the orange of the larches remains, curled round the nose of the hill like a fox’s tail. And the bright flames of the beech trees, whose leaves stay longest on the branch. Cycling up the hill, I could see the beech avenue coming up. Each tree was like a roaring fire. I always look forward to this part of the journey where the road threads this woody tunnel. A lovely, lonely stretch of tarmac, but today I was not alone. As I coasted through the living colonnade, a mass of small birds and animals looked up at me from the ground beneath these gentle giants. Looked up but didn’t scatter. They were too busy eating to take fear from the bike. Nuthatches, often secretive, were tucking into the beech mast only yards away. I could see t