Doubt rises across the dusk at the closing of summer; Sunlight and the north-west wind do not make a good union. Totemic and unyielding under its guise are the shorter days and cooling nights. Now the cold seeps into the cracks between layers and enters all the hollow spaces like an invading army of frosty parasites. It touches the core of me and suddenly I realise what winter shall feel like again.

No more 5am coffee in the garden on sunlit mornings, no more butterflies or leaf filled trees. Here now come the hard times of enclosed spaces and biting rain from grey-washed skies. To welcome the looming workless days flowing from lazy mornings that may feed an active mind and perhaps make sense of it all in some kind of uneasy truce with the world.