An Autumn Ramble

September 25^th and already there’s a hint of Christmas madness in the air and I’ve only just got used to losing those delicious long days since June 21^st. Now we’ve got two months of spiralling mind battering commercialised propaganda and competitive ballroom dancing on Saturday nights. Oh, and don’t forget the bloody daily autopsies with big-mouth Zoe and some tan-painted-bearded-wonder-puppet. Sad thing is – before Mum passed – I actually got interested in all that crap when I visited her.

I guess it’s been an Indian summer the last few weeks; very nice too, but yesterday autumn arrived all late and flustered and commenced to work out its frustration by kicking us in the teeth with cold withering rain and party-pooping wind. That kind of thing’s a bit unfair. Walks with the dog now terminate with a fight in the spare room as she attacks an increasingly ragged towel while I try to de-mud her feet and under-belly in order to save my furniture.

I guess there are a few benefits, like the free hazel nuts handed out by the local bushes and the walnuts I saved from drowning when I snatched them off the trees of the same name overhanging the local river. Also if I was interested in making my own beer (I’m not) ample supplies of hops wangle their way through the branches of the Elder trees opposite my place.

To me though, the benefits are outweighed by the disadvantages. Leaves turning up their toes and dying isn’t a pretty sight. I never really understood why we celebrate the morbid beauty of golden chlorophyll deficient little beauties dying en-masse.

Maybe this lack of empathy is to do with my birthday. It’s 5^th of September: the day almost every kid in the UK and most of Europe too go back to school. Imagine that. You get your prezzies and before you can play with ‘em you have to go to school first. Worse still it’s the FIRST FUCKING DAY AFTER THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS!

I remember even on clear days the sun always seemed lower after my birthday and the first early morning dew always came on the first day at school. Lugging my obese satchel, damp from dew or wet from disheartening rain, through piles of soggy decaying leaf litter to the bus stop every morning – That was Autumn for me.

Hmmm. . . . No thanks. I think I’ll give it a miss if you don’t mind.