Longing for the Suburbs?

It’s not cold yet. The sun is plunging like your coffee maker in the morning, staying low – ho – low. Soon time will be up for daylight saviours. And plane trees, so triumphant, shed their leaves; in a month, the poplars will go bare as sardines after dinner. The poplars: their small leaves will rot and disappear so quickly, before real winter even starts: January. While the plane trees, carry on, carry on, their leaves big, dry, like chopped off giant hands. They linger, all the way to April.

last year's leaves

But not cold, not yet; November round the corner, and I can still cycle without gloves. Damp, and dark, and disconcerting: yes. But cold, no. not yet. Last week I could say something silly, and clichéic, like I love London in the autumn, and what a revelation: the sweet excitement in the air, the squirrels crazy in the parks, the foliage of follies. Today such terms are unthinkable. All I can think of is last year’s leaves, and me, with a sack full of them, going down the hill, the One Tree hill.