Last weekend felt like one of those times you somehow know you ought not to waste. It was around twenty-four degrees, the sun was out and there was a softness to the warmth that had been missing during some of the fierce heat of summer. Everywhere I looked people seemed to be outside. Walkers were out on the paths, cyclists passed in small groups, gardens were being used and pub tables had people around them. Nobody had announced that this might be one of the last properly warm spells of the year, yet somehow we all seemed to know it.
Maybe the body understands these things before the mind bothers to put words around them. Earlier in the summer there were days when the heat became something to endure rather than enjoy. We looked for shade, carried water and waited for the cooler evening air.
Twenty-four degrees towards the end of September feels completely different. The warmth is comfortable rather than demanding, almost as though summer has finally learned some manners.
I spent some of the afternoon sitting in the garden doing very little, which turned out to be quite a lot. Once you stop moving, things begin to appear. The bees were working the last of the summer flowers, disappearing deep inside them for nectar and emerging covered in pollen. Some were so heavily dusted they looked as though they had been rolling in it.
You could hear that familiar low hum when one came close, then watch it move off towards another flower. There was something beautiful about their complete absorption in what they were doing. No fuss, no hesitation, just a warm day and flowers that still had something to give.
The squirrels were busy too
I watched them eating sweet chestnuts and they looked magnificent, plump and healthy, their coats catching the sunlight whenever they moved. They would stop occasionally, look around, then return to the business of eating.
I don’t suppose a squirrel gives much thought to how glossy its coat looks in September, but from where I was sitting, they appeared to be doing rather well.
Watching them alongside the bees, I began to wonder whether we humans were doing something similar. Not storing chestnuts or gathering nectar, obviously, but topping up the human battery. Faces were turned towards the sun; gardens were occupied and people seemed in less of a hurry to go indoors.
There is a different attitude towards a warm day when you suspect there may not be too many more of them. In June we assume there is plenty of summer ahead. By the end of September we are less inclined to take warmth for granted.
The air itself felt different. In the height of summer the heat can sit on your skin, heavy and sometimes uncomfortable, but this sun seemed to caress it. There was warmth without weight. In the sunshine my arms and face were warm, but move into the shade and there was already a coolness waiting there. It was a small difference, but unmistakable.
The scent of nature had changed as well. It had become richer somehow. Not the perfume of one particular flower, but something much broader: earth, leaves, ripening fruit, dampness, wood and the first traces of decay. Every so often a breeze moved through and brought another part of it with it. It is a smell I recognise every year but would struggle to properly describe. Perhaps some things are better experienced than named.
Once I started noticing these small changes, they seemed to be everywhere. The light was lower and softer, throwing longer shadows across the garden. The green was still there, but it no longer had the bright newness of May or June. Sweet chestnuts were dropping while bees were still visiting flowers. Somewhere between all these small things was the sense of a landscape quietly moving on.
You don’t really need a calendar to tell you where you are in the year. Stand outside for long enough and the world will tell you.
There is another thought sitting alongside the pleasure of a warm late-September weekend. Our climate is changing, and unusual warmth cannot simply be treated as an endless extension of summer. The natural world responds to temperature as well as daylight, and changes in seasonal timing can affect flowering, feeding and the relationships between species.
Enjoying the warmth does not require us to ignore that. I think we are capable of holding both thoughts at once: this feels wonderful, and we should keep paying attention to what is changing.
As the afternoon began to lose its light, there still seemed little reason to hurry indoors. That interested me too. Usually there comes a point when you unconsciously begin gathering things up. A cup gets carried back into the kitchen, a door closes, perhaps a jumper goes on. That evening the moment seemed to keep being postponed.
Then the moon rose
The garden changed again. Shapes that had been familiar all afternoon became silhouettes, the trees darkened and the sky seemed larger. Yet the warmth lingered enough to keep us outside. Conversations continued, chairs remained occupied and the evening became part of the day rather than its ending. It felt as though we had been given a few extra hours and nobody was particularly keen to hand them back.
There was nothing extraordinary about any of it. That may be why it stayed with me. No rare animal appeared, no spectacular event unfolded and there was nothing that would have made the evening news. There were bees covered in pollen, fat squirrels eating chestnuts, people sitting outside, a changing scent in the air and moonlight arriving over a garden.
We spend a great deal of our lives waiting for the remarkable while walking straight past the ordinary. Yet much of our relationship with the natural world was probably built from moments exactly like these.
Feeling warmth on the skin. Knowing rain from its smell before it arrives. Recognising that the light has changed. Noticing that a particular bird has become quiet or that another has returned. We knew the year through our bodies long before we divided it into dates on a screen.
Perhaps some of that knowledge is still there. Maybe that was why so many people were outside last weekend. Nobody needed to tell us to make the most of it. Something quieter seemed to be doing that already.
For a little while we stopped, turned our faces towards the warmth and topped up the human battery.
Summer had not returned. It had simply put its hand back through the closing door for a moment.
And when the sun finally left us, the moon seemed to say, not quite yet.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
