I try to enjoy whatever season we are in, each has their special moments, but autumn for me has an extra special feeling. As a lecturer and teacher, over the years it is another "start to the year" so there is that sense of new beginnings, whether it was getting the years timetables sorted and looking forward to the new classes of children, or the decision making looking through the gardening magazines and books, where you began looking at a change round in the garden, making sure that you got your best winter bulbs , like paperwhites which were often in short supply.
Getting the hyacinths ready - that for me , being yorkshire , always meant spacing the pots out so that I would have lovely hyacinths flowering for about 6 to 8 weeks, not for christmas , but for that gap after christmas, where flowers and plants cost the earth at a time you dont have much money. Then regretfully it will be time to move the chairs from the garden and the pots that are next to them to their winter home. I used to have different herbs growing in pots beside each chair. When I had any visitors I would say " oh sit in the ginger mint chair, or sit in the sage chair" Then they could sit in the chair and enjoy running their fingers through the plant or taking a few leaves off.
Now is the important time to go through all my coats and jackets and prepare them for autumn use. By that I mean that I always put a pair of thinsulate type gloves in every jacket and a fold up fleecy hat. Then as the days alter, you dont get caught out by setting off on a lovely afternoon, but the evening arriving before you expect it and feeling cold. The most important to find a white , opaque plastic shopping bag. Fold it up very small and place in pocket. Then again if you are coming along an unlit road or without a pavement, especially at dusk time, take out your bag and hold it on the side nearest the traffic. This will be picked up in the car headlights and make you visible. You then always have a bag to hand too, for that extra shopping, or the chance of some free blackberries. Ah time for blackberry and apple crumble to remind you of the joys of autumn. I love the smell in autumn, and of course the wonderful colours and the chance to slutch through the leaves listening to that wonderful sound and still enjoying trudging through a well ordered pile of leaves, even if I have to sweep them up again later!! Ah , nobody knows that that old lady with white hair hobbling through the woods is really only 9 inside and is running and jumping and throwing leaves into the air!! Hunting for that wonderful best shiny conker to be the winner later on. Go on I dare you!! If there are enough crazy things happening, I would like to hear on the news of an epidemic of older people seen running through leaves, throwing them up in the air, and swishing through lovely piles of leaves. That will give them something to put serious faces on and discuss "what is happening to the elderly" and debate whether it is a natural phenomonen or is our personal resply to other mad things , like letting the lunatic run the National Lunatic Asylum at the previously named Oval. Ah well at least our madness wont harm or kill people!! Enjoy it while you can, theleaves will turn soggy all too quickly!
