Favourite Season?
No contest – Autumn
Here’s one aspect, but there are plenty of others:
Come Autumn with your winds and rains,
And falling leaves that block the drains,
With pungent swirls of bonfire smoke,
That hurt my eyes and make me choke,
With chilly morns and lengthening nights
Dark afternoons and early lights
Come Autumn, though you’re dank and cold
And make me realise I’m old,
Come swiftly, Autumn, I don’t fool:
That’s when my kids go back to school!
Another look at Autumn
Chutney Time
Onions, pale globes spread in the sun,
Branches weighted with apples, bend to the grass.
Autumn haunts me, heavy with nostalgia.
It’s chutney time again,
The kitchen thick with simmering goo,
Spicy and pungent.
Time of memory and mellow fruitfulness,
The turn of the leaves
Spinning down to the dank earth
In the last long rays of autumn sun
To be gathered and garnered
Hunted and hoarded
Till the basket is full, pushed down and overflowing.
I could live without Spring, urgent, thrusting, restive,
An itch in the brain that will not go away.
I could survive without Summer.
The reality never quite living up to its promise,
Never quite enough sun, ice-cream, happiness to go round.
I wouldn’t miss Winter; icicles, jingle bells, Christmas toys
Are just a tad overdone once you pass ten.
But Autumn – that’s different, the crown of the changing year
Mature and mellow, brisk and bright, fruitful and fulfilling
Children’s voices echo in the playground,
School books are resurrected
Plans are made, resolutions –
“This year I’ll learn Russian, knit myself a jumper
And redecorate the spare room.”
Of course, I don’t do any of these.
But such is the spell of Autumn
For a second I really believe I might.
Least favourite?
That’s easy, too. Summer
What? Someone who doesn’t like Summer?
If Summer comes can Fall be far behind?
The sun beats down from a brazen sky.
The grass is parched the beck is dry.
For the life of me I can’t think why
Folk say “What wonderful weather!”
Lying still you can’t help sweating,
Kiddies wingeing, babies fretting,
Amidst it all, what is the betting
You’ll hear “What wonderful weather!”
Suffocating in the heat,
Nursing sweaty swollen feet,
I dream of rain and snow and sleet
What I’d call wonderful weather!
I cannot think when I am weltering
In pools of sweat, I’m stifled, sweltering
The flys and wasps go helter-skeltering
They think it’s wonderful weather.
It isn’t that I hate the sun,
But burning like a current bun
Cooked too long and overdone
Is hardly my idea of fun
Oh how I hate this weather!
Threewheelergran 