September

September

Brierly Ashour

When the goldenrod is yellow,
And leaves are turning brown -
Reluctantly the summer goes
In a cloud of thistledown.

When squirrels are harvesting
And birds in flight appear -
By these autumn signs we know
September days are here.

How is it possible that two thirds of 2008 have now gone?  Is it really September the first today?  The start of Autumn or Fall, as the Americans say.  That's actually a far more accurate word really. 

This summer has been one of the worst I can recall.  The last few have been pretty grotty, but this one has topped the lot.  There has been very little sunshine and buckets full of rain.  The last day of August yesterday was grey, grey, grey.  Wind and rain as usual.  Some people are saying that we are going to have a few weeks of Indian summer.  Well if we are, I hope it hurries up and starts.

I'm not that keen on autumn. You can never quite tell how cold it will be, so you don't know what to wear. It seems a sad season to me, with everything dying off and the birds all migrating.  At least in winter it is cold  but the promise of spring is not far away. Not to mention that once September begins and everyone returns to school, it always just seems a downhill run to Christmas.

When our children were all small I had to begin planning for Christmas as soon as they went back to school.  We didn't have a great deal of money so all the presents took very careful planning and I had to make purchases over several months. 

The school terms have always punctuated my life and they seem to go by so quickly.  I measure everything by where we are in the school term.  Even though my children have long since left school, I have 2 just beginning University and of course, Simon is  a school teacher, so I can't get away from the "school year".  The autumn term is generally a long one and the teachers are all very weary by Christmas.

Of course once we reach Christmas, then that is another year gone by forever. It really is true that the older you are the quicker time passes.  Do you remember as a child how long half an hour could be if you were waiting for something?  It could seem like 10 hours. 

A week left until the end of the school year and the summer holidays would seem like a whole month.  It took so long to pass.  Maybe it's because we had so many expectations when we were young?  Maybe now we know that this year will probably be much as the last one was? Is that pessimism, realism, complacency....................Tempus Fugit.