Everything's fine, in its season

Seasons matter.

For years England has been deprived of a proper summer. Seven years, some say. Well, this year we had one. 

OK, I appreciate that it would barely register as summer for my sons in Spain, where today the temperature dropped to 33 Celsius (91 Fahrenheit, for the benighted States). Still, by our standards England had a real summer: the skies were often blue, and it tended to be warm most of the time, bordering occasionally on the uncomfortably hot.

Having a summer makes the rest of the year so much more bearable. One can put up with a little harshness in January if one’s had some gentleness in July. 

That was a truth that was borne in on me particularly strongly today.

A fine rain was falling as I walked my dog Janka in one of those areas that redeem the often ugly environment of Luton. A stretch of wooded land follows the river Lea and runs into an old orchard, which someone – perhaps the Council – is trying to bring back to its old use, with new apple trees just now beginning to bear fruit, in among the mature ones.

The presence of such a place is magical, especially as it’s surrounded on either side by housing through which runs a major road to Bedford.

In the gentle softness of Autumn, the fruit is ripening

In that setting, the rain mattered not at all. It was the kind that doesn’t really seem to wet particularly, but instead simply creates an atmosphere of softness. Janka certainly seem unfazed, much more interested in the smells in the undergrowth than bothered by the drops. As for me, I was enjoying the blackberries, each an explosion of flavour this year – they too seem to have liked the summer – and when we arrived at the orchard with its branches weighed down with fruit, a couple of apples too.

So what we were getting was a foretaste of the next season. Autumn isn’t quite here, but it’s coming. The grey light, the cool ground underfoot, the fruit, the silence. The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is nearly on us.

And that’s fine. Because it’s coming when it ought, after a season that has delivered what it should. So we had no complaints about our walk, Janka or I. On the contrary, we’d had a great time.

Into every life a little rain must fall, they say. But that’s not a problem. As long as it comes in its season.

Instead of just going on and on, as it has for the last seven years, right through the summer months. For Pete’s sake.

Raindrops keep falling
But in a kind, seasonal way