fall

The autumn is my favourite season. I've heard it described as summer with a side serving of melancholy, and that sounds about right to me. I enjoy taking walks in nature and seeing the trees, shrubs, and flowers winding down after all the hard work of putting their best feet forward all summer, and now bedding down for the winter. And that's what autumn is, for me, it's weeks of preparation for the cold months of winter. Obviously there's the always satisfying job of shaking the mothballs out of your warmest knitwear, but beyond the practical tasks there is the mental preparation that needs to be done ahead of the arrival of the dark months. I like to set myself a long-term project that can keep me occupied for months. Something I can do indoors, and that'll keep my brain active. It might be a reading challenge, or a writing project. I also draw up a list of practical chores to do that I've been ignoring; sewing a button back on a shirt, putting a nail in the wall so I can finally hang that picture. Time out of doors will be curtailed, especially on wet days, but I will always try to go out for a walk every day, because exercise and fresh air are very important for me to maintain good mental health. I'm lucky in as much as I can go walking by the sea everyday, and there's nothing like a stiff sea breeze for blowing the cobwebs away.

These all seem small ways to keep myself active and engaged, but I don't believe that gestures always have to be big to be effective. It's the small everyday things that build a routine and reap rewards. And in a tenuous effort to show and not tell what I'm talking about, I'm posting a picture of my Peacock Orchid. It's flowering outside right now, an autumn jewel in my garden. The bulbs were bought in the £1 shop. I could afford to gamble £1 on a plant I'd never heard of, and at that price it wouldn't matter if it didn't bloom. But it did, and it's rather wonderful. Small investment, big reward.

Photo is the author's own.