8:30Pm

[Maydup]

8:30pm and its dark here , autumn has well and truly arrived.

[Buenchico]

Thanks, Tony.

My cats have got every bit of my house labelled in the way illustrated in your link!

[rowanwitch]

Used to have seven including 4 kittens up to their rehoming, you don't know what cat trouble is. They look like nice fit cats though.

[Canary42]

Getting this thread back on topic (!), here's what John Keats thought.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[marval]

I love that poem Canary.

[Buenchico]

Thanks, Canary42.

If we're going all poetical, I'll throw in my own poem on autumn again:

The Old Man's Autumn

They say come see the colours of autumn,
with the golden leaves upon the trees and those of brown beneath our feet.
I try but I fail.
I see nothing but death and decay
as the forlorn leaves fall to their doom.

They say come see the joyful children trick-or-treating,
with their faces bright and their pockets full of bounty.
I try but I fail.
I see nothing but the frightened pensioner
as there's yet another knock at her door.

They say come see the bonfire and the fireworks,
with bright colours in the sky and sounds like gunfire bursting forth.
I try but I fail.
I see nothing but the terrified pets
as they flee in fear, never to find their way home.

For I am in the autumn of my life
And, like the leaves on the trees,
I know that when autumn comes
Winter beckons all too soon.

[hereIam]

^ Oh dear that is so sad, I think I prefer Canary's one.

Autumn is my favourite time of the year, but it's not quite here yet. Won't be long though ...

[maggiebee]

Only 17 weeks til Christmas!!