There are a plethora of leaves on the ground now. As you would expect. This autumn, a gardener tells me, the leaves seem to have fallen all at once. Last year, he claims, it was a much more gradual process. It is much easier to deal with if they fall all at once, he goes on to say. Hopefully, for the rest of us, that means much less use of those awful leaf blowers.

Leaf blowers. One of the things I don’t like about autumn. I could list all the things I love about autumn, but that list is rather short. It goes like this:

1. All the colours of the autumn leaves.

That’s it. My list of things I don’t like, I will try and keep brief:

1. Shorter days
2. Cold
3. Christmas stuff in the shops
4. Christmas preparations altogether
5. People coughing and sneezing all over me on the bus

I could go on, but my main gripe is definitely number one. I miss daylight. You will be relieved to know, therefore, that I am taking my moany old self off to somewhere sunnier for a couple of weeks, to annoy people in another country. People of Madeira, steel yourselves!

One thing that really cheered me up recently though, and almost stopped my litany of misery in its tracks, was a conversation I overheard. As I was passing a small girl of around six years old hand in hand with her friend, a small boy of the same size, I heard her ask him the sweeetest question. “What is your favourite leaf?”.

A question I have never been asked, but one which I will now ask you. What is YOUR favourite leaf?