We Plough the Fields and Scatter ....

It’s a bit of a cliché, I suppose, to talk about the first whispers in the air of autumn and the effect it has on me, but since it is by far my favourite season, I’m going to mention it anyway. I just love this time of year. The light is softer, kinder, there’s the merest hint of parting and melancholy, and a blue autumn sky is one of my favourite sights. It feels as if there is a new energy taking hold as the year races on and we strive to catch the last of the light, before the long night falls. I always feel as if I’m in a bit of a race against time, that I have to tidy, sort out, put things to bed. I get far more of an urge to clear out now than I do in the spring. The garden, having reverted to wilderness because of the neglect it always suffers in late summer, teases me with delights hidden behind mountainous weeds – late-flowering roses, borage appearing again, dahlias and nasturtiums peeping out from dense foliage. I don’t even want to think about what needs doing to the house, but inside too I have this pressing, insistent need to organise and sort. I think of it as a late flurry of activity before the desire to hibernate takes hold; I could cheerfully sleep in front of a fire all winter, I’m sure I was a dormouse in a previous life.

Yet for the children it’s a time of new beginnings, a new year far more significant than January 1st. I watch them setting off, my son twice the size of my daughter, calm, protective, dependable. A quiet and thoughtful boy, I get flashes of the man he may become, and almost cry. Seeing my daughter trot alongside him, pleased as punch with her new school uniform, reminds me of the lyrics to one of my favourite Bert Jansch songs: “Fresh as a sweet Sunday morning, like a high-stepping pony, trotting and prancing, ah she’s so full of life, sparkling with tiny red roses”. There’s heartbreak at the classroom door, but smiles at playtime as she’s reunited with her brother, and a beaming face greets me at pick-up. Fourteen more years of going to school every morning; an era is over, for her and for me.

Yesterday I was wiped out with a migraine. Not fun. Blind spots in my vision heralding the agony, then jagged bright lines ripping the world apart. The throbbing pain, when it arrives, is as instantly familiar and unwelcome as the contractions of childbirth, and I’m just as powerless to stop it. No gorgeous babe to suckle at the end of it – although today the pain is reduced to a dull thud, and I have the prospect of pain-free sleep tonight – I told you I was a dormouse.

A long time ago as I was asked to write about the sounds and smells that might reach me, were I to be in a coma. I promptly forgot all about it, and am now, as ever, just about the last to complete the task. I fear mine will be repetitive, but just to ease my conscience, and in no particular order, here goes:

1. Birdsong, preferably the evening chorus which always seems to be more contented, more replete. If I were to pick a favourite bird call, it would probably be the lone cry of a curlew, high on the moors, but I’m also partial to the mellow cooing of a wood pigeon on a summer’s day, and the melancholic hoot of the barn owl on a winter’s evening, as he circuits the house.

2.Possibly a bit of a strange one, this, but I’ve already instructed my husband to play me a tape of the football scores, should I ever be in said coma (cheerful thought). Not because I will particularly want to hear how Newcastle did – I’m not that devoted – but because there’s something reassuringly familiar and cosy about the ritual of reading them all out. It reminds me of being a small child and falling asleep on the sofa late on a Saturday afternoon, with my Mum in the kitchen and the men all gathered round the TV, the printer on the television whirring in the background. I’m not Scottish, but for some reason it was the romantic names of the Scottish teams that penetrated my subconscious – Queen of the South, Heart of Midlothian, Motherwell, Hibernian.

3. Of all the flower smells I love, including lilac, sweet peas and freesias, I think I’d plump for Lily of the valley. The scent of the perfume Diorissimo always gets me right in the solar plexus.

4. The Kinks singing Waterloo Sunset. Reminds me of being young, ambitious and in love with life and London.

5. The scent of Christmas trees. Never fails to inspire me with the magic of Christmas

6. The smell of Rosemary, crushed between my fingers. I love all herbs, but Rosemary can transport me in an instant to star-lit Mediterranean nights, and mountains sweeping down to the sea.

7. The sound of crickets, for the same reasons.

8. The sound of water rushing over stones – so fresh and clean sounding, so joyful and impatient.

9. Either of my children calling Mummy – but preferably in their happy, loving, voices, not the imperious yells that sometime penetrate my subconscious at 4.00 am.

10. The smell of clean sheets. I suppose I ought to say fresh and wind-blown from the line, which is lovely, but actually fresh from the dryer will do just as well, and reminds me of the excitement of going to the launderette with my Mum as a tiny child (we didn’t get out much as toddlers in those days!)