Orange

Orange is not a colour I feel completely comfortable with. I think
of garishness, of supermarkets and fast food chains. I feel attacked by
marketing.

Yet orange is warm and comforting, the colour of the sun warming my
hair as I sit in the garden. All shades of orange together with reds
and pinks making up the beautiful sunset you photographed at Worm's
Head.

You have beautiful orange begonias in the tub in your garden. I love
the way the petals grow looser and tumble down gently onto the patio as
time passes. The orange petals tinted at the edges with that glorious
yellow. They are like small flames from the fire.

I don't like to wear orange clothes much. Orange is too "in yer face"
for me. I prefer the positivity yet style and vibrancy of red.
Orangey-red can still be too much. It doesn't suit my
personality.

Orange is the colour of manuals and textbooks, of reference
information. It is the colour of signposts and directions. It is
unfeeling and concrete.

I like the oranges of autumn - those wonderful shades merged with reds
and browns making up the tapesty of crunchy leaves around the bases of
the trees.

Orange is for mobile phone advertising. They have adopted the colour as
their name. They must like it. A lot.

I love the way you make orange squash for me - with the high juice and
the mineral water. Delicious and refreshing. I like freshly-squeezed
orange juice at posh hotels. Vodka and orange was my introduction to
alcohol, aged 16. I could be all grown up and drink without really
tasting the alcohol too much.

Oranges themselves are fiddly, time-consuming, a lot of work for what
is sometimes a sour disappointment inside. A good one can be splendid
when the juice runs down your fingers, covering you in
stickiness.
Their cousins clementines and satsumas and tangerines share their
colour but not their name. I like their cuteness, their manageability,
their taste. Satsumas mean Christmas is coming. Hurrah!

In my office orange is the colour of Russia, taking up a large space on
the map of the world. Orange is the heading on a newsletter and the
cover of a membership directory. Orange are the roof tiles on the
building in Perth, Australia that was modelled on this one.

My friend Mary says that the colour orange stimulates your appetite,
makes you hungry. I wonder if that's true...?