The trees have started to turn. Little clumps to start with, like bouquets tied against the rest of the green of the canopies. And with it, I know that it is really autumn after all.
These trees: I have come to learn the seasons from them, over the time we have lived here. They change much later than the rest. So if you want to mentally avoid a season coming or going, you can look at the trees and tell yourself: not yet. Not just yet.
Today I wake and see that the yellow has been caught up at the top of the furthest tree.
No arguing with it now.
But in all other aspects, the trees are going about their business. No sudden losses of leaves after a stormy night. Look out of the window, and they are only slightly incapacitated. Like someone walking up a hill and pausing for breath, but still upright.
There are six trees in the stance. As far as I can count. They both fill the middle distance of my view, and continue beyond it – beyond the wall of our house, and the roofline of the house opposite.
When you have a regular view, and natural items in it, they taken on additional significance. You learn to see the weather in checking the view, the temperature, the season.
At other times, they are the backdrop to the thinking, the writing. I look up from corralling the words, see the trees, pause, breathe. I realise they are as necessary to the writing as the words themselves, the limbering up of fingers on keys.
The world of laptops means I can choose where I write, and I do move around the house, writing in different places. But I find myself most often here, writing where I can see the sky, the trees, the pigeon formation team at times.
So it is only fair to tell you that the leaves on the trees are turning yellow. In time, the trees will be bare against the sky.
They will stay that way, even after bulbs are coming up and hedges are putting on new growth. There is an element of deliberation about it. They will not be rushed into following the same timescale as other trees and plants nearby.
It is not that they are better than the others for being later. Just that they seem to be particularly themselves in it. They are high, these trees, and their canopies seem to join up. They are like the tall person with a large frame, not stooping, offering a quiet but clear presence.
Perhaps sometimes the found item is the new discovery about something you feel you know well. It is the thing you wait for, and that still surprises you when it arrives.
The trees have my attention. I promise to them that I will notice when they are fully yellow. And I anticipate them, catching the light as the year winds its way to a close.