Autumnal Hues on a Sunny Sunday Afternoon

After a dismal start to the day, with proper autumnal rain lashing at the windows, 

the sun appeared during the afternoon giving me time to potter around in the garden

Leaves have started to turn and drift down from the trees

but for now 

from Michaelmas daisies, through the leaves of blueberry shrubs and red salad-bowl lettuce,

 kaffir lilies and fuchsias, to ripening apples

the predominant colour in the garden ranges through red to purple

using what you've got - cooking

this week we've had a glut of lettuce. all of them - the red salad bowl, the clarion(a green butterhead type) and the little gem are running to seed so either they have to be eaten up somehow or thrown away. there's only so much lettuce you can eat in salad, only so much you can persuade the neighbours to take and I can't imagine it would freeze very well so it was out with the recipe books. first we tried lettuce with peas and pasta,in a cheese sauce - this was a proper recipe so it turned out to be a success though neither of the daughters would try it. then we had a stir-fry with some of the red lettuce - this wasn't as good, the lettuce was stronger and tougher, perhaps should have been cooked for longer.so back to the pasta idea, this time pork with a tomato based sauce and it turned out very well. maybe it's a good idea to try to think "outside the box" with surplus food, certainly it's better than wasting it