I can see the sea. I went to the seaside today for the first time in nearly two years! Caught up with a friend from college days who lives near Whitstable on the North Kent coast. The view seen here is looking towards the Isle of Sheppey with the mouth of the Thames Estuary beyond.

 Pre-pandemic I'd hop on a train to these parts several times a year. It was great to feel the sea breeze on a fine autumnal day and to smell the salt air and seaweed.

 

  Still getting handfuls of raspberries. The canes were already on the allotment when I started tending it. I had assumed they were summer fruiting raspberries because that is when they first start to crop. In fact they have became more productive in the past month or so.

 A fellow allotmenteer who is wise in the ways of raspberries provided what seems a likely explanation. Apparently if you do not cut autumn fruiting raspberries down to the ground over winter (as the books recommend) they will start fruiting in summer. I tend to leave the bare canes standing and perhaps they are indeed of the autumn fruiting variety.

 Sedums are a good late flowering plant for the garden. They attract both bees and butterflies. The clump in the front garden has been rather swamped by the Asters but it's still going strong. The varieties grown in gardens are generally cultivated from S. telephium or S. spectabile, not sure what this one is.

 I was surprised to read that S. telephium is native to the UK. I can't recall ever having seen it growing wild so I would be intrigued to find it in a natural habitat. 

 Michaelmas Daisy (Aster novi-belgii) flowers well into autumn and helps keep the bees in business for a while longer. It proliferates readily in sunny spots so there's plenty of it around at this time of year. The patch shown above is in the front garden but drifts of it are often to be seen alongside railway tracks. 

 It came to us from North America in the 18th. century and naturalised. On train journeys I sometimes see a haze of pink and yellow where it grows with Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis), another species from across the pond. Both are of the Asteraceae/Compositae family. 

 We do have an Aster native to the UK. The Sea Aster (Aster trillium) can be found in coastal areas particularly salt marshes and sometimes on cliffstops. 

 Drifts of Cyclamen hederifolium. One of the few plants to flower in shady spots this late in the year. Plant a few and they will spread. Sometimes called the Ivy-leaved Cyclamen- unusually the leaves follow the flowers forming a good ground cover during the winter months. 

 Enormous fungus.

 Glorious. Drinking a pint of beer sitting outside a village pub overlooking the village green on a fine autumnal day.