How I hated September as a child, it meant of course back to school after a long glorious summer of climbing trees, swimming in the river, playing on the sweet smelling haystacks and lazing in the long grass for hours with a book for company.
Primary school was mostly fine but the Autumn term always meant that the girls had to do knitting for two hours a week on a Tuesday and my knitting was atrocious. Long after other girls had become proficient and had gone on to knit baby clothes for little brothers and sisters or even bobble hats and scarves I was still at the plain square pot holder stage .My teacher Miss Smith had lost all patience with me and declared me incorrigible, she was right, I still cannot knit.
It did not matter that my crochet work was gossamer fine and perfect or that my embroidery was second to none the fact that I was unable to master the problem of even tension in my knitting made me an outcast and I was made to sit with the infants while I struggled with my pot holder,it was a fine blow to my conceit and I felt it keenly. Finally the headmaster decreed that I was indeed incorrigible and informed my teacher that instead of knitting he would put me in charge of the library, a grand name for a folding bookcase in the corner of the hall.
I would decide what books we would take each month from the mobile library. This was a position of honour and I passed very quickly from being the butt of a hundred jokes to some one who must be treated well if you wanted a book on a particular subject. My old headmaster was a wise man indeed.
Out doors was my element and as I grew up I hated Autumn as it meant the onset of =bad weather and believe me where I lived the weather could be and usually was dreadful from October to May. Above all I hated the early darkness which closed in and curbed my freedom to roam were and when I chose. I suppose that it was what the season augured rather than what it was which made me dread it so.
Old folks always told me that the older you get the more you dislike Autumn and winter but of course I being contrary have found the opposite to be the case.
Now September is welcome with it's softer light and its misty mornings. I love the spicy scents of the decaying leaves and the bustle of the harvest. Now it means to me a rest from all the gardening, jam making and preserving which has occupied me for months. Although I love my gardens by this time of the year I am getting weary and in need of a break before the business of making Christmas cakes and puddings in amounts that seem to increase year on year.
Most welcome at the moment are the cool nights when it is a pleasure to snuggle down under my patchwork quilt instead of being far to hot with only a sheet. Having been brought up one the northern hills where there is always a breeze I suffer a good deal from the humidity her about.
September means that once again we can eat game and venison pasties rabbit pies and roast pheasant are back on the menu accompanied by honey baked butter nut squash... wonderful.
It means sitting around the kitchen table all together playing cards or board games or drinking our hot chocolate together while we watch a film, yes I love September now because it is the harbinger of all these pleasures...and it means that my little cat will spend more time with me curled up on my desk of my bed and for now the September sun is glorious. Life has it's compensations I always find.
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