the fading of the year

It's a beautiful day outside: warm, like a fresh June or April day but with a slight twist in the air, a shadow of breeze which hints at the darker days approaching: Halloween, Bonfire Night, Advent... But for now, it could almost be Spring. It's the change which you can feel; the wheel of the year spinning on its axis.

Autumn is, in fact, my favourite season. Always has been. My mother's too - one of the (fairly rare) things that we agree on. She always says it is because you are never disappointed: if it rains, you expect it - if it is sunny, you're pleasantly surprised - if it blows a gale, it's exciting. Sure enough, we have had all those days lately, including a spectacular thunderstorm the other night which brought both of my children into my bed in the middle of the night ('scared of the white light', said Blue Eyed Boy, clutching his blanket. 'Lightning you mean', said my half-asleep daughter, Pre-Pubescent Beauty, sweeping her long hair away from her face. 'Go back to sleep'.)

For me it is more than the lack of disappointment that makes Autumn so rich and poignant.

It is the turning of the tide, the shortening of the days, the dying of the light, the change in the air; the opposite spoke of the wheel to those bright days of early Spring. Everything is fading, the leaves turn from green to amber to russet to brown and finally blow in the wind on the dusty streets as Winter comes in. Everything is beginning to sleep. Conkers fall to the ground; the flowers begin to close their heads and retire for the winter; animals start to furrow their hideouts to escape the cold.

And we can all slow down a bit. We have more time. Time to draw on what we have achieved, what we have learnt; what we have yet to learn. Time to reflect on how we want to grow in the hibernation of late Autumn and Winter; what we want to develop in time for next year when we can emerge again into the sun.

Plus, I really hate enforced jolliness: that 'having to be happy' feeling. New Year's Eve, for example - when you're meant to be dancing from the rooftops and paying £20 just to get into your local pub or club. The best one I had I got lost in a field at an outdoor rave, years ago, totally off my head. The second best, I slept right through it.

Summer is much, much worse.... You have to smile, to say 'isn't this wonderful?' even when the sweat is seeping through your summer dress and you just feel like collapsing on the floor in exhaustion. You have to be happy when the sun is out in England, however you feel really, because so often it isn't.

But there is none of that now. Nothing is forced; nothing is set; nothing is fixed.

Each day comes as it comes. Kick those leaves in the air and watch them dance in the wind. Feel the turning of the tide, the spinning of the wheel. Another year passing and fading and disappearing; all the troubles turning into distant memories. Another year approaching with its bright, clean pages for a brand new fresh start.