Looking for autumn – a year on year story.
Normally it comes with a rush. Sharp storms, hard winds and the tittle tap rattle of leaves on darkened windows. But this year it’s different. Summer lingers beyond its welcome. Nights that should be cool and cosy stay garden drinks warm. The wasps remain. Bees still buzz around the flowers of the rosemary, extending the BBQ season. The tomatoes have gone, but that was my decision rather than the weather’s. The garden glows with a post summer green that you normally only see in real estate posters and over saturated post cards. But it’s out of place, after a hot summer – a record or so we are told – I look forward to the chill pleasures of autumn. (People I know, many, many miles away look out through windows at deeping snow. Roads, with car top roundabouts, are passed only by vehicles with tracks, designed for war and frozen lands. A white landscape at Easter, summer migrants in the snow, a waif thin barn owl...