Outdoor Discoveries

Autumn is here…

Deciding when our seasons start and end is probably a thankless task given the wide variation in the weather with the Azores High not doing what we’d like it to do more often than not and Atlantic storms getting under way whenever they will. Add global warming to the mix and it gets even more confusing. It all makes observing sort of convention look futile.

Yet, conventions do come into place and according to the one employed by the British Met Office, today is the first day of autumn. It’s also the first day of the new school year around where I live and, as if to show that it knows when the new school year is starting, the sun has made its appearance this morning after a murky, damp and misty weekend. However, the signs of autumnal colour have been creeping up on us slowly over the last few weeks. Add to that the fact the August was for many people a wet disappointment and it would make more sense to consider that autumn has started already. In fact, my primary schooling in Ireland taught me that August was the first month of autumn. The Irish language itself follows suit in that its names for September and October translate into English as mid-autumn and late autumn, respectively. It’s something that makes me wonder about autumn starting in the middle of August and winter beginning in mid-November. That might be how it feels for me but I have no intention of mounting a fruitless challenge to convention. I’ll be sticking to savouring the best of what the season brings and I hope that you will find something to enjoy too.