The first snowfall of the winter is a thing of magic, especially when it is entirely unexpected. Where were the weather warnings the other night? Nowhere!

No matter: the light sprinkling that arrived in the small hours did little to hold up daily activities here in Chipping Norton, but certainly added a sparkle to the landscape.

I went out to take some shots and here they are, the rural scenes captured in and around Water Tank field, with town centre rooftops framing the hills beyond. Below, New Street is clear for traffic though in the distance, the fields gleam with a light frosting of snow.

Coming soon, I will be adding online picture ordering to the website, the idea being that if you like the look of an image you’ll be able to order up your own print of it. Well, that’s the idea anyway; meantime enjoy these pictures of our light sprinkle of Cotswold snow, starting with tyre tracks in Rowell Way.

For black-and-white photo-fans, patterns made by furrows are picked out easily.

The pictures (above and below) were all taken in and around Water Tank field. It’s a popular walk, especially liked by dogs and their owners.

Here’s the cover of my latest book, ‘Portrait of Chipping Norton.’

It’s available from today as an eBook for your laptop and desktop computers, for iPad and other tablets.

It’s even viewable on iPhone and other smart phones.

You like good old printed books? That’s covered too, as you can order a personalised printed version, in which case the eBook comes free.

What’s inside ‘Portrait of Chipping Norton’? Well, here’s the blurb, to give you a feel for what you’ll find in its 50 full-colour pages:

“Chipping Norton is a pretty market town in the beautiful English Cotswolds. This book shows events and celebrations in 2012, such as the Queen’s Golden Jubilee weekend, Chippy Jazz and Music Festival. For history lovers the ‘Old and New’ section shows how the town has changed over the years. For those with an eye for detail, pictures reveal unexpected sights – such as the plaque to Edward Stone, who discovered the active pain-killer ingredient in aspirin.”

To find out more, and preview nearly half the pages at reduced size you can click the ‘Preview’ button underneath the cover at the info point at HP MagCloud, our international partner. You have to set up an account with MagCloud, and once that’s done, our tests have shown the system working well.

Early November means the trees are becoming very bare, here in the Cotswolds. The upside is of course the wonderful colours that surround us – greens, yellows, russets, browns – they’re all there, mostly now spread on the ground.

Beauty indeed, perhaps best summed up in the words of Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt, “…This other Eden, demi-paradise…” However chill the day or raw the wind, a closer look at nature’s bounty makes up for it – though a hot cup of tea is welcome when you get inside again!

I followed this public bridleway not far from the ancient Rollright Stones, to be rewarded at the far end by hugely long and truly spectacular westerly views.

Now it’s Autumn, and the clocks have gone back to ghastly winter time, which means that shades of night are drawing in not long after English teatime – and before that when the skies are overcast.

One day perhaps, we’ll decide to stop this twice-a-year moving the clocks back and forth. My choice is very definitely to stick with Summer Time all year round, and I’m backed up in conversations on the subject, and by safety statistics too. All surveys point to less accidents in winter if we stopped messing about and stayed with Summer Time.

Hey ho… in the meantime, Autumn still gives us sunny days like today, with intensely blue clear  skies, peppered with puffy white, fast-moving cumulus clouds.

The low sun angle makes for interesting shadows, especially on rolling countryside, where the contours show up far more clearly than at the height of summer.

And there are plenty of rural sights to see, including this fine cauliflower-like cloud formation, bubbling up (as TV weather forecasters say it) over the horizon. This was taken on the A44 road, heading west toward the Cotswold market town of Moreton-in-Marsh, home of an excellent Tuesday market, many antique shops, a fascinating architectural reclamation specialist, and not forgetting the small-but-perfectly-formed Wellington Museum, specialising in the World War II bomber of the same name, which flew from the nearby air base during the war years.

If you like classic cars, then the biennial Churchill Vintage and Classic Car Show is a must-see event, held on the wide sweep of Churchill’s village green. This pretty Cotswold community is just a 15-minute cycle ride from the TEE base in Chipping Norton, and is a near-neighbour of the Top Gear TV show presenter Jeremy Clarkson; Prime Minister David Cameron also lives a few minutes away.

The show was a powerful reminder of past names in the auto world, including one of the most popular world marques, Austin. A confident, chrome-plated ‘Austin of England’ logo in flowing italic script was applied to Austin cars in the early 1950s, as both decoration and product differentiator. According to some reports, parts suppliers from non-English parts of the UK were not so happy about its use, though this doesn’t ring quite true to TEE, as the terms ‘Made in England’ and ‘Made in Great Britain’ were used by many manufacturers, particularly for export markets, as they were seen as respected badges of quality in many markets.

No matter: at the time, the country – and Austin – were still recovering from World War II, during which Austin, based in Longbridge, Birmingham, still built cars but also made trucks and assembled aircraft, including the Avro Lancaster bombers of the famed ‘Dambusters’ 617 squadron. Planning for post-war production started while the war still raged, and a new car range was announced in 1944, with production getting underway the following year. The immediate post-war range was similar to Austin’s late-1930s cars, though one important technical breakthrough included a new overhead-valve engine.

The Austin of England title was promoted everywhere: on the cars, it was applied along the side, in front of the door, as shown in the splendid Mark Fosh picture of an Austin Somerset convertible shown above. The logoscript also featured in adverts and sales materials, and very good it looked too. Sadly for enthusiasts, a combination of takeovers and political meddling led eventually to Austin’s demise, and the marque is currently owned by SAIC Motor, of Shanghai, China. SAIC also owns another classic name, MG, which may well be in good hands, for in SAIC’s words, “Our job at MG Motor is to take this great brand, full of history and heritage and give it a worthy future.”

The 2012 Churchill Vintage and Classic Car Show was held in a relentlessly cool and damp summer, but the rain held off and a great day was had by all. Enjoy the Austin pictures we took there with the trusty iPhone 4S – and maybe pencil in your diary for a visit in 2014.

Click here for the Churchill and Sarsden website, which has details and more photos, and enjoy some of the other cars, shown below.