“We don’t get seasons anymore, not like when we were young.” Some people really do say that and they’re usually the same people who recall an era when no one needed to lock their front doors, everyone cared for their neighbours and there were no criminals. Yes, a sepia-tinged, kinder and gentler era which never really happened. Having been around during part of that non-existent era, I knew it was all stuff and nonsense. But until recently, I still clung to the belief that seasons aren’t what they were. But actually they are.
We have what is known as a maritime climate. The internet defines it thus:A maritime climate is (I have cut and pasted this bit, which is why it’s an odd colour) “a climate that is influenced by the nearby presence of a large body of water, such as an ocean or lake. Maritime climates are also known as oceanic climates or marine climates.” Yeah, that’s it. Our large body of water is the Atlantic Ocean which, you should not be surprised to learn, is wet, which is why it’s wet so bleeding often.
It’s lighter for longer in the spring and summer months than it is in autumn and winter, it’s warmer and drier (sometimes) in the former than the latter and actually things do change. And there’s a reason I know this is true: my partner’s garden. In particular, her Acer.
The change to winter colours is slow, but not glacially so. You won’t notice the change on a daily basis but week by week, in turns into the November colours it is today. This year, this autumn to be specific, her Acer, as you can see from the header photo, is more beautiful and, well, autumnal than ever.
My ignorance of what constitutes seasons in England is probably down to misunderstanding the very meaning of English seasons. You know the kind of thing. Hot, dry summers and blizzards and snow drifts in winter. In truth, they rarely happen. In 1976, we had a long hot summer and in 1963 (starting on Boxing Day 1962) we had the blizzards and snow drifts. Occasionally, we get the odd hot summer and a cold winter (one week in January 1982 springs to mind) but mostly our seasons are not extreme. That is why we go to hot places and cold places for our holidays, although I have to say here and now that a cold weather holiday, like skiing for example, appeals about as much as Hemorrhoids.
Looking out of the window today, it’s grey and damp and frankly it could be any time of the year, until you go outside in it. Then it’s obviously autumn, a matter of weeks away from winter.
The seasons are there if you look for them. The changing of the guard in our garden, now I have been educated, is the clearest indicator. And that’s down to my more than adequate partner who long ago embraced the seasons, as I continued to wallow in ignorance, assuming like a lot of old people fings ain’t wot they used to be.
Climate change is messing things up as it will do increasingly in the years and decades ahead, but barring the more common extremes, the seasons will come and go, all four of them.
The next thing for me to do is to embrace and enjoy the seasons, which I don’t currently do and frankly never have. I see spring as renewal and so optimism, summer as the culmination of the renewal, bringing with it the warmth and everything else, including autumn, feels like winter. That’s how you wish your life away. We have got to get it together now, as Thunderclap Newman might have put it..
I am now close to the that time of the year when I have to stop pretending it’s still summer and even early autumn by donning my trackies and jeans, putting my shorts away for a few long months. I’ve made it to November this year but I know from my increasingly cold feet the pretence cannot go on for much longer. Ladies, I know this must be very disappointing for you, but here’s a photo of my leg to keep you going until the spring. (The white bit is a stud mark acquired during my stellar football career.)
We do get seasons. It’s just that people like me have just been to lazy to observe them. As I said, the next stage is to enjoy the cold, the dark and the all round gloom that accompanies autumn and winter. If you have any suggestions, answers on a postcard, please.
