I love Autumn. Part of the delight of the season, is that, more than any other, it denotes transition; that summer is passing and winter is coming. Colours change and leaves fall. It's very appeal bound up with this impression of transition, that it is to be enjoyed whilst it's here as it won't be around for long - it beckons that shouldn't be taken for granted.
It's the colours though that throw me. The trees changing out of their green uniform and putting on their finest for the Autumn celebration. Yellow, orange, brown, red, auburn in all of their different shades.
Fireworks. 5th November gives us firework displays in abundance but Autumn reminds me of fireworks. Just last weekend I found myself in the lake district. The hillsides were a burnt orange from all the ferns dying off. Set against this burnt orange background were hundreds and thousands of trees in their Autumn colour. From the hills, looking down on the melee of colours, it is the closest we can come I think to a firework display from nature. The sea of varying colour is so vibrant, it explodes onto the otherwise grey, windy and wet British Autumn-going-on-Winter.
Carpet. The beauty of the colour continues even when the leaves fall. It's often when I least expect too that I'll come across a carpet of leaves mostly on some grassy area. It's like a painting, as the leaves are strewn over the expanse. Then the frost lays it icing making the carpet crisp to walk across as early morning air assaults the nostrils.
Delight indeed.
