Today is The Glorious Twelfth and, in a sense, it marks the beginning of the end of the British summer. You just know that it will not be long before chestnut leaves will be tumbled, by a river breeze, across the lawns of Greenwich Park and the majestic, fruiting mulberry tree, outside Lincoln's Inn library, will start to turn from green to gold; the beech trees along the Fowey and the Tresillian rivers will, in their own strange, sudden way, redden to the Fall nearly overnight and a chill will creep into the air, beckoning on for shooting, hacking and brisk country walks, rewarded with log fires and hot crumpets on forks, smothered in butter with big pots of tea. I think that Browning got it wrong and that it should have been:
"O to be in England
Now that Autumn's nearly there"
Overall, for atmosphere and true nostalgia, I'd give a fine English Autumn the edge over a fine English Spring.
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