By Christine Swan
In a 2024 UK Ipsos survey, 20% of the respondents stated that autumn is their favourite season. Are they mad I hear you ask? Over double that amount quite sensibly, preferred summer. I side with the latter.
Why don’t I favour autumn? I suppose that I associate it with the return to school, a turn in the weather, the end of the summer holidays, sunny, carefree days, no more flower festooned gardens, book-reading or glittering seas.
Autumnal sunshine in the capital
Instead, autumn offers dark mornings, cold winds, rain, grey clouds, and rapidly advancing evenings. This all seems very negative of me and surely there must be some positives? In this post, I will try, earnestly and sincerely, to cheer myself up by striving to pick out the not-so-bad characteristics of a UK autumn.
Autumn leaves on a Birmingham canal
Firstly, tree colours can look pretty. That seems to be a shallow assessment but that is what they are. A pleasing palette of yellows, golds, and burgundy, can be strikingly beautiful when the sun deigns to shine on us. Slimy, fallen foliage is quite foul and hazardous, but dry, crunchy leaves are aesthetically swooshing to walk through, I will grant autumn that. Mushrooms and toadstools also fruit mostly during the season. Fungi forays offer a natural treasure hunt for autumnal walks.
This heron is oblivious to the fact that it has wet feet. Unlike me.
I have a dislike of being cold, and even more of being cold and wet. When it rains, wardrobe choices are more limited. Even if it is less cold, a raincoat, or at least an umbrella, will become your companions. Shoes need to be waterproof, and, even if you believe that they are, a downpour might disprove that theory. Wellingtons are not appropriate business workwear, unless you wish to look like a Paddington Bear tribute act. I wear glasses and cannot see well when rain covers the lenses. Nobody yet has invented wipers or demisting fans for the bespectacled population.
Rain, rain and yet more rain. Taken on my way to visit a school. I arrived resembling a half-drowned rat.
Flooding is a feature of a Worcester autumn
The nights become longer in autumn. I get up in the dark, travel to work in the dark, travel back home, and spend the evening. Like a mole, or bat, my life is lived in semi-permanent darkness. When I drive, I am amazed that so many people choose to wear black or navy blue for their autumnal outer garments. I have a highly reflective, waterproof jacket, that bounces back headlight beams to the driver’s eyes. They cannot miss me, and I do feel safer. This particular jacket has served me well and, as I write, is hanging in readiness for another season of service.
Sunsets can bring a touch of colour when waiting on a station platform for a train home
Urban autumns do hold some appeal. Shop window displays stand out as items are backlit. Colours pop and entice us to draw closer. I also participate in the sport of looking through windows that I walk past. I’m not a nosey parker but, if you turn the lights on, and fail to pull the curtains, it’s natural to look in. It is usually the residents with the most beautiful living rooms, in interesting or period houses. I peer in enviously at their immaculate decoration, and compare it to my overflowing shelves, piles of paper to deal with, and things that need to be tidied away, if only there was somewhere to tidy them away to.
New Street, Worcester, looking autumnal on my walk home from the station
Autumn also brings a couple of significant festivals – halloween and firework night. I used to believe all of the hype around halloween, that ghouls and witches appeared at midnight to eat innocent children. As a small child, I believed that as long as I fell asleep before the witching hour, I would miss the horrors and all would be well. I usually awoke on the morning of the first of November very sleep-deprived, having spent the night cowering under the covers, ensuring that no protruding limb might tempt a zombie to eat me.
A spooky vehicle patrols the streets of York
Firework or bonfire night, used to be a more joyful event. There were the annual disappointments of the Catherine wheels that wouldn’t spin, the rockets that didn’t even have time to tell Houston that they had a problem, and burned sparkler fingers. Bonfire night is a very English festival and quite challenging to explain to international readers. Children used to make effigies of a long-dead Catholic plotter, push them around in wheelbarrows or buggies, and beg for a “Penny for the Guy”. After crafting their creation, on bonfire night, the source of their donations was tossed onto the bonfire and burned. I can remember crying profusely during the burning, but my tears dried when the metal Oxo cube tin was brought out containing the much-anticipated selection pack of small, but perfectly formed, fireworks.
Public firework displays never disappoint. And no burned sparkler fingers!
It is a feature of British autumns that transport systems fail at the first sign of inclement weather. Apparently we have the wrong kind of rails, leaves are immensely disruptive, and rain is wet. I always plan ahead by assuming the worst: “If this train is cancelled, I’ll catch that one, and still arrive on time.” Fail to prepare, prepare to b e amazed by how many trains actually could be cancelled in one day. Frozen points, signal failure, and broken down trains, compound the lack of available train crew. Autumn is always an adventure on the rails.
Sometimes, it’s better to not know what’s going on!
I will, this year, to embrace autumn and all that it brings. I will try to remain positive and delight in crunchy leaves and cosy living rooms – as long as it doesn’t rain too much!
Awful Rigours and Wretched Pay 