Is it autumn yet?

I have always loved September. It might help that it is my birthday month. It might also be because I was a child who liked school and, even though I had loved the summer holiday, I also loved the buying of the new pencil case, the new pencils and rubbers, the folding back of the stiff cover of an exercise book to reveal a pristine sheet of clean paper, smelling of promise.

October is OK. There is still a chance of a day filled with the golden light and long shadows of an Indian summer. The only problem with October is that it is followed by November when the clocks have gone back and the days are grey with wind and rain and the light has all gone by mid afternoon and I have to work hard at shedding the sense of gloom and focussing on the light and warmth of Christmas to distract me from the grievous loss of my outside life.

So I have mixed feeling about autumn. Is it beautiful, with flowers still glowing and crops thronging the kitchen?

Or is it full of sadness, full of the loss of summer? Or perhaps, it is both and the trick is to enjoy the beauty and let the coming of winter wait. Or even to remind myself that I love winter too in its way, love fires and frosts and snow and snowdrops and the coming of spring. It is such a cliche that we should live in the moment but I at least find it extraordinarily hard to do with plans and lists and diaries stretching out into the future so that one eye is always on tomorrow. Gardening helps I think because you need to look at what you are growing and see it properly and you can't do that with your head full of what is to come. It clears your mind. Living in the country helps too, especially somewhere as beautiful as this part of Wales. There is so much to see which stills the relentless demanding clamour of the day after tomorrow. It is a crime not to be in the moment out here with the heather on the hills and the leaves still on the trees.

Today I learnt of a project called heather and hillforts. I know the Clwydians are covered in heather because I can see it every day from my windows and when I am gardening. I know the range has a number of bronze and iron age hillforts because I have walked them all and climbed the ramparts. Yet somehow it had passed me by altogether that there is a project going on right now to protect the wildlife and archaeology of this area. We have Wales's largest population of black grouse and the largest number of hillforts in one area in Britain. I am fascinated by the wildlife outside my door and by the hillforts which crown the ridge which is my skyline. Time to stop thinking my life away and to get up there on the hills again.