September song

One of the coolest and wettest summers since 1983 (apparently) is almost over.  Tomorrow it will be September and we can no longer kid ourselves that the weather we have been waiting for since May will actually arrive.  The nights are drawing in already and even on a bright day it is dark enough to need the lights on by 8.30.  This year autumn has arrived quietly - not the sudden realisation that it is here that we sometimes get but more a stealthy creeping with mellow fruitfulness coming early and berries on the hedges whilst the summer flowers are still blooming - quite strange really.

It has been more than 50 years since I last returned to a new school year in September and yet I still see September as a time of new beginnings!  A time to turn over a new leaf and to start on some of the indoor projects which have lain undone during the lighter months. 

It is actually very liberating to realise that all those things one had planned to do during the summer and not got done can now be shelved as it is too late! 

September brings thoughts of cosy evenings - no longer need we spend the long daylight hours gardening and trying to keep on top of the weeds but thoughts can turn to quiet evenings knitting or reading,  earlier bedtimes when the sound of owls in the black darkness replaces the final night-time chattering of the rooks in the soft grey darkness of midsummer nights.  Windows no longer wide open but just enough for some fresh air during the night.  Bedclothes covering us rather than pushed aside....

There is a slowing down - the pace of life is less frenetic during the autumn and winter and now that, for most of us winter doesn't mean real hardship and the possibility of not having enough to eat I look on it as a welcome interlude for Spring will surely come again and by then we will be well rested and ready to begin again.

I love our seasons here in the UK and would really struggle living somewhere where the days were always the same length and the sun shone most of the time.  I enjoy hearing about sunny winter days with temperatures as low as 20 degrees in Australia but we here in UK are made of sterner stuff and that sounds more like summer to me!!   I love the misty dampness of autumn days, the occasional clear bright day, when the sky seems an even brighter clearer blue than during the summer months, all the more appreciated because of its rarity, the wonderful colours of the leaves and berries and the general feeling of snuggling down for a pleasant nap! 

"Where are the songs of Spring?  Ay, where are they? 

Think not of them thou hast thy music too .."

(Ode to Autumn - Keats)

Here we rarely have the extremes of weather that some parts of the world have - I am thinking of those poor people across the Pond who are reeling in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene - but our weather and our seasons are altogether more gentle affairs and whilst we often complain about the grey rainy days of February, the cold dark days of December and the lack of wall to wall sunshine in summer we don't usually have to deal with the devastation that these extremes can bring for which I am truly thankful. 

I leave you with a photo of our recent tomato harvest!!  We have been eating our daily portion of beans, have had several cucumbers and have been adding some of the nasturtium flowers to our salads (luckily no blackfly aagain this year) even had a couple of dozen apples from our little tree but our tomatoes have not ripened and when my husband said "I have picked 2 tomatoes - they will do for our lunch" I thought we'd be rather hungry!!!