Autumn Musings: An article by Jellie N.Wyckelsma

 The haste of summer subsides, and the golden days slip away quietly. Autumn makes a brave entry. In our memory, the ferocious bush-fires of yesterday become mere, softly glowing embers. The smothering, black smoke has long gone.

Birds flock together, fleeing to a warmer climate. They are off to Queensland, or even further onto the Northern hemisphere. The seagulls stay, and enjoy bobbing on the boisterous waves of the Southern Ocean.

In autumn time wrinkles. Daylight hours shrink. At dawn a soft sun peeps through the mist, making the drops on spider webs glisten. A rare display of precious pearls in the early morning hour. The antarctic winds turn into wild storms. The trees in the forest tremble. Old leaves fluster nervously, before floating down en masse and showering us with colour …

We gather nuts, mushrooms, and berries; harvesting the last fruits of summer. When preserved we will enjoy them another day. Our boots tread on, swishing in the carpet of leaves. A lone squirrel runs up an oak tree. Patches of moss drank the first autumn shower and now display a velvety dark green.

Autumn smells like home-made wholemeal bread and golden pumpkin soup. In the orchard, we bite into red, shiny apples. The colder breeze makes our cheeks blush, and our fingers tingle. We reach out for shawls, gloves and lambswool cardigans.

We shed a few tears over the lost summer, but a kinder sun kisses them away. In the evenings we curl up with old dogs in front of an open fire waiting for winter to follow ...