Presage of Autumn?

As it was so much cooler this weekend we started hill walking again. Although we've done lots of walking in June and July we haven't got up into the hills a lot, it's quite simply been too hot! But today it was fairly cool with lots of cloud and grey skies. A perfect day for the Lakes. Although it's still August there was a definite chill in the air and that indefinable feeling of the end of Summer.

Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley wrote about August in Months at the Lakes:

August is as changeful as April in its moods and mind... August is a month when, if it is fine during the day it very often rains hard all night... August is a month of surprises. One day the clouds are leaden and lowering and the hills are wrapped in storm. The next day they stand clear and brilliant, with purple shadows filling all the coves and folds, and with rosy sunlight upon the heathery flanks, while great golden clouds lift up above the cobalt blue edges of the distant hills, and white galleons come sailing into seas of sapphire air and melt in the far-off blue.

Yesterday, it certainly felt like Autumn is just round the corner, the smell of woodsmoke in Hawkshead intensified this feeling, and today, when we walked up Arnside Knott, stopping to collect blackberries on our way, the feeling of early Autumn was increased.


John Donne wrote in The Autumnal “No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face." I certainly echo his sentiments, Autumn is a beautiful time of the year. For me it is the most beautiful of seasons.