You Have Saved the Best 'til Last

Driving down the dual carriageway, I peer out the windscreen and say anxiously to Nigel, “How much longer will they last?”

“Another week maybe?  Not long?”

I love Autumn.  Did I mention?

I love the way that trees which seem a uniform green in Summer each choose a different colour.  The beeches are copper, the birches gold.  I love the way the spindle tree, drab and insignificant for ten months of the year suddenly becomes the Rupaul of the hedgerow - camp pink berries and fabulous, flame coloured foliage. 

But now the leaves were nearly all over for another year.

I was supposed to be going for a last Autumn walk with Carol, but unfortunately something came up.

I decided I’d go anyway.

It was early, bright and frosty.

And the colours took my breath away.

This wasn’t so much the end of Autumn as a grand finale.

As an empty-nester, one of my preoccupations is a regret for the passing of time and the shift from one generation to the next.

But when I saw the trees that morning, a phrase from the Gospels kept going through my head – “You have saved the best 'til last.”