I haven’t been able to take country walks for a few months now, owing to
my faulty foot.
It has made me feel disorientated.
Every year I monitor the seasons closely, marking the time of year by
what is coming into bloom, what going to seed.
I am delighted when a sunny weekend summons a cloud of butterflies from
their pupae, or when a wistful breeze in late summer has the swallows congregating
on the telegraph lines.
I’m even happy when oncoming Autumn means all the blades of grass are
hung with spiders’ silk hammocks.
But this year, deprived of the usual signs of the turning seasons,
I feel stranded back in the early summer.
“Wait, it can’t be Autumn yet – I haven’t had my summer.”
Thanks to the buses, I have been better at getting to the town centre
than to the country.
But in the shops, the seasons are weirdly distorted.
In the shops, seasons start and end long before the weather and
daylength mark the actual season.
In the shops, a season only exists AT ALL if it presents a merchandising
opportunity.
Now, for several weeks, it has been orange pumpkins and tinsel - Halloween
with Christmas trimmings. No mention of Autumn.
I was desperate to find some reality and begged Nigel, Carenza and Will
to take me gathering chestnuts in the woods, something I do most years.
We had missed most of the sleek brown nuts in their prickly cases, but
gathered just enough to put by for the chestnut stuffing to serve with Christmas dinner
in a couple of months’ time.
More than that, it was a relief to see sun shining through the yellow
and bronze leaves of the wood and to encounter Autumn in her considerable
beauty.
This Cornish hairdresser was celebrating Halloween, but I'm not sure it would make me want to get my hair cut there. |