Shuffling through leaves

The viciously cold weather of the last few days, and the sharp breezes, have brought down most of the leaves from the trees - before they'd even had a chance to start turning colour   (Hmm.  Actually, most of the trees in Beijing never seem to change colour anyway.  The wrong sort of leaves, I suppose.)   There are few finer pleasures in life than scuffing your shoes through dense piles of dry, rustly leaves.   I wish it wasn't quite so bloody cold, though.  Winter has shown up a full month early this year.