Season of Mists

Maybe it doesn't have the bright-green, brash optimism of spring, but autumn is perhaps the most beautiful season after all.

Five geese are flying in perfect formation alongside my train as it rolls through the green and gold of the Chilterns, and I stop my thoughts to notice this, the purposeful dark V through the orange of the leaves against a clear blue sky.

Every regret, every "that was the last time I....", every "now I realise I will never...." will be exorcised with a new, good thing to look forward to. I will have to manufacture these, conjure them from my imagination and hope that with an alchemist's spell, with a magical sleight of mind, I can convince myself that a trip to the Thames Barrier is just as good as a month of Caravaggios, pasta and horny sex in Venice with the Man Of My Dreams.

This could work, right?

Five things I will do this autumn.

1. Walk the path in the Chilterns
2. Have a drink at the Prospect of Whitby
3. Use my voucher for a farmhouse breakfast
4. See Little Venice and walk along the canal
5. Visit the church where my dad was a chorister

Lots of good things are yet to come.