To Autumn

All too quickly, summer is spent. The intensity of the heatwave at the start of the month seems to have exhausted the season and we are now suffering from early onset autumn. In the vegetable patch, the lettuce has bolted and the courgette plants have stopped offering up fruit; in the greenhouse, the tomatoes have all been harvested and the cucumber plants have collapsed. In the hedgerow opposite, the blackberries are already ripe and are being rustled by a cool north wind. At home, there has already been mutinous talk of lighting the wood burner but there are no logs yet and it seems heresy to wear a jumper in August.

Usually, I would embrace the arrival of autumn and the sharp focus it brings after the hazy wide-angle sprawl of summer; but I am in denial and want to put off its arrival for as long as possible: because not everything is normal and not everything is early. Some things are late or not happening at all: the familiar marker of the football season is delayed and mass music events have been cancelled. Usually at this time I would be preparing for End of the Road, the final fixture in the festival calendar; but this year my tent is staying in the shed and I will be watching an online stream from an audience-free Larmer Tree Gardens.

Mostly, I want autumn to wait in the wings a bit longer because of what it may bring. With schools attempting to return to normal, office workers summoned by the clarion call to save the sandwich shops and a stubbornly unmoving R number, we can only wait, watch and wonder while autumn's 'barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day.'

Apricity

A November Saturday morning, soon after sunrise: the ground underfoot still in shade, the first heavy frost of the season means that, as I walk through the long grass at the far end of the fruit farm, each of my footsteps emits a satisfying crunch. Higher up, the golden rays have turned the remaining leaves on the pear trees a burnished amber, and the alder windbreaks in the distance a deep vivid orange. More importantly, the early beams provide insulation against the morning chill; but at this time of year, the sun will not get much higher in the sky than this.

Heading south to the coast in the late morning, the sun's low dazzle reflected on the wet road ahead means that we are driving blindly along a snaking river of silver flanked by a riot of deciduous colour. Here, the usual yellows and oranges of early autumn are complemented by the rarer saffrons and maroons of the onset of winter. The saturated colours mean that everything is Ektachrome: all is viewed through the prism of fading memories, of the world viewed through childhood eyes.

At the beach, despite some nimbostratus rain clouds lurking threateningly in the distance and a persistent south-westerly blowing in from the sea, the sun is still strong and I can feel its radiance on my face. This apricity - the warmth of the sun in winter - is a welcome fillip. My new favourite word, the noun 'apricity' was first recorded by lexicographer Henry Cockeram in his English Language Dictionary of 1623 but has been rarely used since. From the Latin apricus - warmed by the sun - it also has a verb form, apricate, that means to bask in the sun. I only heard of the word recently as the title of Canterbury band Syd Arthur's latest album. Just as with most useful things I have learned about in life - books, films, politics - the language to describe the warmth of the winter sun came to me from pop music.