For those of you curious about the photos in my previous post: the boats are Dartmouth, but taken from the castle and looking upriver. The second picture, taken into the sun, is Prawle Point, and the last is Start Point - from the west (so taking the footpath that takes you away from the path to the car park).
Here we go again - September. No more reading in the garden till gone nine in the evening. No more waking to the song of the mistle thrush. No more playing in the river or hunting for wild strawberries. Soon it will be crumpets for tea and the shops full of sparkles.
I'm not, as you know, good at winter. And I'm not good at picking up the rhythm of life in the autumn. I love the anarchy of summer, the feeling that anything can happen any time - just because it's light and the sun is shining (some of the time). Now the schools are back the term-time routines have resumed and I am, unwillingly, picking up the threads again. The writing group, the book group, the choir.
I know I need these rhythms. However much I love the freedoms of summer life can't be like that all the time. I need to wake up and know that, just because it's Tuesday, I need to get up and get out on time. I don't have to like the discipline of it. But I know that, if months stretched ahead of me without any sort of routine, I might slip into complete lethargy and become the doddery old soul in the corner drooling into my tea long before the years dictate.
Which is why, reluctantly, I am embracing September. It is an opportunity - I know that - to be more purposeful. And I do my best to see it like that. Even so, I can't help feeling as I did at the beginning of every school year as a child: do I really have to do this just because it's good for me.
Yes, I do. (At least until January, when I can go AWOL again!)
I don't like the dark nights but like every year I'll get used to them. I do feel I have to really push myself to do this when the mornings are colder and wetter. I make up for it by searching and dreaming of next years holiday.
ReplyDeleteAny idea where you're off to next year, Anne?
DeleteChania in Crete. I wasn't that keen on Malta this year.
DeleteI have always loved autumn with the gorgeous colours, and I don't like it too hot so it suits me. Reminds me of the new school year, new stationary and start of the lacrosse season! (even if that excitement was short - lived once the term started!) Enjoy your activities, they sound fun. Louisa x
ReplyDeleteYou were, no doubt, a model student, Louisa - I wasn't and dreaded going back to school. (Can still recall your Dad in short trousers ... now there's something you don't want to imagine on a Monday ...)
DeleteI'm finding it hard to let go of summer this year. But the weather is helping! Been having breakfast outside almost every day lately!
ReplyDeleteTo me it's October that does it for me. Followed swiftly by November (birthday month! :D) I love autumn, the smell of it, the colours, the feel of it. Love it, especially when I set off on my bike onto the Great Unknown. :-)
ReplyDeleteGreetings from London.
We've had such a wonderful summer here, even though it was rather late in arriving. Today is the first day we've been driven inside by rain. I too must accept September, work, routines and all those things I don't really feel like doing. I too am going into the autumn, mentally kicking and screaming. I wonder what you have planned for your escape in January....?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to Malawi - that's about all I know at the moment!
Delete