I just returned from a week off during one of the most glorious Autumns I can remember. It’s barely coat weather, the sky is blue at least part of the day and all the newly dropped leaves are crisp, not clogging up the drains yet. I thought it took full sunshine and a beach to make me unwind, but I have to say big trees and reddish leaves were really doing to for me last week in the great English outdoors. Here’s my week off in pictures, from my local woods to a corner of the Cotswolds and then finally a night at that lovely inn, The Old Bell in Hurley, famous for Ilse Crawford’s design and those vintage welsh blankets…

 Two minutes from the South Circular in S E London and there’s this. 

Cowley Manor hotel, the grounds of which inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. But the best thing about the gardens was…

The huge mature trees.

Wellies to borrow for taking a turn around the garden.

The dining room of The Old Bell inn, its ordinary booths spruced up with blankets held on by huge leather belts.

Squashed in with a couple of shrubs on the way home.