The Unlikely Joy of Autumn!
Posted on November 8, 2012
A strange thing is happening to me this autumn and that is that I am enjoying it immensely. This is something of a revelation for me as I normally spend the months of September, October and November in a thoroughly depressed state of mind courtesy of lack of daylight and falling temperatures.
There may well be several contributing factors to this unusually positive state of mind and I have counted three so far.
- I have stuck to my plan of eating fish. Some pretty impressive scientific studies have suggested that the scarcity of S.A.D (Seasonally Affective Disorder) in dark cold countries such as Norway, Iceland and Canada is strongly linked to a fish diet.
- It is hard to get depressed about summer ending when we didn’t have one in the first place. Most of you will remember a monsoon season of washed out fetes and cricket matches as well as caravans floating off in to the Atlantic and images of people sat on their chimneys desperately waiting for helicopters. Autumn has been a picnic in comparison.
- There is a line a Beautiful South song that says “the flowers smell sweeter the closer you get to the grave” and I kind of get that sentiment with autumn. In recent years I have started regularly commenting to my children how beautiful the autumnal colours are and the utter lack of interest on their faces as they bury their heads back in to X Boxes and iPods is confirmation that the colours of the seasons are wasted on the impeccable eyesight of the young and appreciated more as we get older.
Autumn colours against a blue sky on my journey to work
So if you do get a bit depressed in the Autumn, I suggest you eat some oily fish (mackerel is a good start) go for a walk through your local forest (I’m getting a dog soon to stop me looking like a rapist!) and imagine what it would be like to live in a soulless oven somewhere like the UAE or Qatar. They all look nice on the postcards but ultimately, they are just space centres built in the desert, featuring about as much substance as the sand they are built on.
Could the English tourist board make all cheques payable to R.W Lethaby please?
clive
November 8, 2012 (10:33 pm)
Couldn’t agree more. Our country has so much to offer. We all dream of warmer places to be but a brisk walk with a mans best friend via the pub of course is the best thing to do through the English countryside. Oh and by the way we think Poppy has found a boyfiend which is good news as she is having all the tell tale signs of being up for it. Oh sorry as Martine quite rightly said blooming or coming into season I think is the correct wording.