Yes, yes, I know we’ve already done the obligatory oh-look-it’s-autumn post, but seriously, when I said September was my favourite month? I lied. October has totally blown September into a cocked hat this year.

(Um, WTF does ‘blown into a cocked hat’ actually mean? My mum says it all the time.  But where did it come from? Answers on a postcard please.)

Where was I? October. The month for trees. Heaven for a tree-hugging hippy chick, and pretty good too for Bad Dogs who love rolling, digging and shuffling in fallen leaves.

Here in England, we don’t go so much for the brash American-style fiery reds and oranges, but instead opt for a distinguished palette of endlessly varied golds, yellows, browns, beiges and warm muted plums.  Oaks in yellow ochre, golden poplars, horse chestnuts in raw sienna, copper tinted beeches and birch in palest yellow. Warm and rich and comforting in the mist or vibrant and glowing in the sunlight against a blue, blue autumn sky.

An artist hippy chick nature loving girl could orgasm on this much beauty. Just sayin’.

And hedgerows! Rural England, at least the part where I live, is dominated by fields bounded by miles and miles of hedgerows, most no longer strictly maintained but growing wild and tangled and full of thorny beauty.

There are rich red haws on the may – that’s the “darling buds of may” Shakespeare wrote about – which we call hawthorn, and deep violet sloes decorated with a dusty mauve bloom on the blackthorn. Shiny red hips on wild dog roses, black berries on the dogwoods, and all their leaves turning golden, plum and dusty rose brown against the tangle of thorny stems.

Even the long-dry flower spikes of docks become a rich rusty value counterpoint to the beige of they dying field grasses and decaying nettle beds.

I live near Easton Neston, and we often walk along the old stone wall that bounds the estate, next to the mature mixed woodland inside. This morning we walked through a golden rain of leaves from six large poplars outside one of the gatehouses; the ground was completely carpeted with them. Also along that wall are what I call the Lothlórien ash trees, because they turn an incredible light gold that almost seems to glow from within, and the leaves flutter gently to the ground as they fall. There couldn’t be a better model for a mellyrn tree.

There are often times I wish I were back in Vancouver where I grew up – but autumn isn’t one of them. Because I love autumn in England’s countryside. I love the gentle warmth of the sun and the cool crispness of the air, the misty damp smell of leaf mould and woodsmoke, that first whiff of a coal fire when the first frosts arrive.

And I don’t know anywhere else I can enjoy the glorious colours of the winding down of the wheel of the year, yet still have roses blooming at Halloween.

Tagged as: autumn