I smell Autumn. It happens around this time of year, every year. The thing about living so close to nature is that senses align in ways they never could in Urbia. The tensual connection with the light, the way the wind flexes, shifting from this to that direction , even momentarily, the tap of cold on bare ankles, the way the distant hills turn grey sooner than before. It would have been survival back in the day. The grasses, left long and now all seeded out, bend like dancers but take longer to straighten up. Seeds and down fly everywhere to the last resort. It doesn’t upset me at all, although I do pull a warmer jersey from the mix today after work.

Thing about Summer is that she is a spirit, short-lived and a cavel, supremely wonderful, providing ridonculous temperatures for a while and then, after giving out all she has, gets weary. Autumn, a very different strength, also female but much older, rises like a grandmother with the promise of a gentle and long-term handover. That’s what I have observed over almost 50 years here in the cup of nature. I felt her nudge today as I got out of my mini, arriving home from working in the Best Cafe Ever, and even though my fed is thoroughly up about my olding limitations, sore thumbs, hips, I still love my membership in the dynamic team. As I arrived home, felt the shift, saw it in the ‘might need lights’ thing (not yet) and I smiled. I love the seasons, the way they don’t give a thought to what we daft humans plan. They are the power and our power, and if we want to connect, the way to do this is to engage. Autumn isn’t July? It is here, and, if you read books and stories and actually want to get how it really is beyond the falsehood of Urbia, this change will not upset at all.

I remember my mum packing up our summer kit in a huge ottoman. Teeshirts, frocks, shorts, all of that. The winter kit came out. Jumpers, warm breeks, thicker socks, long-sleeved underpinnings. It was (and I am guessing) around October. Not now. The survivors will just go with it. My suggestion, if it is possible for you, is to check the stars, to feel the slicker breeze, to see what can only be seen in Autumn light. Clarity. To shift away from how it was because the was of that is long gone.

I smelled Autumn today. I smelled her as I opened my car door, arriving home. I felt it in my house. lit my fire, noticed deer on the far side of the sea-loch, sensed a crisping of air beneath a dense camp of clouds.