Station Zero

I’ve always loved autumn. When I was quite small I remember thinking these ‘Goldener Oktober’ wine adverts were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, and spent ages trying to copy the lettering. (I wonder what the wine was like? My parents didn’t drink, so I probably didn’t even really know what wine was.) I never did get the lettering right, but autumn is still my favourite season. Autumn sunlight is better than summer sunlight (more golden, less hot), leaves, ferns, and grasses start to turn more interesting colours after the drab greens of July and August, and the architecture of the trees starts to become visible again as their leaves are stripped away.  There are mists, mushrooms, blackberries (until Michaelmas when the Devil wees on them, the creature), and even in town there are sometimes great drifts of cornflake-crisp leaves to scuff through. If you’re lucky there is woodsmoke in the air, frost on the morning lawns, and a bracing chill when the sun goes down. If you’re ...