Last week there was a day when a decent weather forecast and an empty diary coincided, an opportunity with a good friend for trip to County Donegal, to visit some familiar places and explore some new ones.

There is a magic moment - a magic few days in fact - that all lovers of the outdoors look forward to each year: peak autumn colour (or fall colour for my American friends). It is the time for wandering amongst the trees, especially beech, oak, birch and maple. Since I live in one of the least forested countries in Europe, that poses a problem. Many years ago more than 80% of Ireland was covered with trees. By 1925 that was down to around 1%. Lush oak woods were everywhere. Now only a few small patches of the ancient forest remains.

I always find it challenging to photograph the landscape in summer. Crazy sunrise and sunset times, atmospheric haze and, most importantly, time with the grandkids! (Not forgetting other commitments such as New Horizon.) Now that autumn is in full swing, hours of daylight have rapidly decreased and children are back in school I have started to venture out once more.

Have you ever seen the movie Frequency? A sci-fi thriller, shot 24 years ago, featuring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel as a father and son in which, due to an ‘atmospheric anomaly’, the detective son has the opportunity to reach back through time to change the tragedy that befell his firefighter father thirty years previously. The atmospheric anomaly was the Aurora Borealis.

A few miles from where our eldest daughter lives in Nashville, among richly forested hillsides, lies Radnor Lake. With its abundance of wildlife, firm pathways, and many marked woodland trails, it is a marvellous place to walk at any time of year. Especially marvellous with four excited grandkids for company. And so it happened that on the Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, before church, we set out on a mini adventure.