iRemember

I remember so well this time of year, when the fields have returned to dark brown earth once more, the furrows polished smooth by the plough blades, and the golden fields of corn, shimmering in late summer breezes, are already a distant memory. The sun rises lazily though hazy mists, which hover over meadows and mingles with the breath of cows, and the cobwebs on the withering blackberries are heavy with dew. 

The sweet chestnut candle flowers, so recently dancing in the sunlight, are now drooping heavy with smooth brown conkers, which fall and remain scattered around the tree trunk, waiting for the little boys who no longer come to pick them up. 

The landscape changes from light to dark and the sky is strangely quiet, until you realise the swifts and swallows have left without saying goodbye, and are probably already chirruping and screaming through the skies over African villages and towns. 

And so the days gradually get shorter, the long descent into the cold and monochrome world of winter. It's time to remember where the sloe trees are.