September

[Alison]

As a spring/summer girl I am finding the pro-autumn arguments quite compelling and certainly music plays a bigger part as the evenings draw in.

[visualnickmos]

.....and once more The Last Night is almost upon us! Seems only five minutes ago we were eagerly anticipating the publication of the programming....

[Petrushka]

.....and once more The Last Night is almost upon us! Seems only five minutes ago we were eagerly anticipating the publication of the programming....

Yes, for many years now the Last Night of the Proms is the real dividing line between summer and autumn for me. Thereafter it's only a few short weeks before the usual countdown to Christmas. Booked the now traditional Christmas lunch with friends last week and then felt we'd left it too late.

[jayne lee wilson]

North winds already this week, already down to 14 or 15 degrees... the dread of failing daylight grows upon me...

I miss the bright midday sun, I miss even what little heat we had in the northwest, but I dread the dark evenings most, musically enlivened or not. By mid-November I can scarcely find the will or cheerfulness to even choose the bloody music. If I could hibernate from November to March... but then I almost do, metaphorically at least...December is mostly spent in bed listening to the rain, with an equally morose cat for a teddybear.

Independence for Scotland now! Then we can have our brighter winter evenings back and learn to cope with two different, closely adjacent, time zones. Should make winter even more fun.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

North winds already this week, already down to 14 or 15 degrees... the dread of failing daylight grows upon me...

I miss the bright midday sun, I miss even what little heat we had in the northwest, but I dread the dark evenings most, musically enlivened or not. By mid-November I can scarcely find the will or cheerfulness to even choose the bloody music. If I could hibernate from November to March... but then I almost do, metaphorically at least...December is mostly spent in bed listening to the rain, with an equally morose cat for a teddybear.

Independence for Scotland now! Then we can have our brighter winter evenings back and learn to cope with two different, closely adjacent, time zones. Should make winter even more fun.

Changing the clocks doesn't make a scrap of difference to the amount of daylight on any day. But you may have to get up earlier to receive its full benefit. However, I do sympathise with anyone who is affected by S.A.D. I'm the opposite in that I dislike the hot summer pollen-saturated months.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Honestly, whose idea was this thread. I'm not made of tissues, y'know.



** September 1972 - A new country, new schools and the claustrophobia of a new home in the London suburbs in such marked contrast to our beautiful childhood home on Dublin Bay. An awful time of upset and the bitterest rows between our parents who, until then, seemed to love each other so much. How such shouting hurts so deeply at the age of 9.


** September 1974 - My first day at Big School and a moment of great relief. Having been uprooted from Dublin two years earlier and parachuted into an utterly unfamiliar primary school and system where our foreign accents made us so conspicuous, now I was getting a fresh start at the same time as everyone else. A moment of great relief. The rows at home had ended and the foundations had been laid for our new life in London.


** September 1975ish - Last Night of the Proms on the television and a sweltering September evening. Windows open throughout the house and suddenly a bearded drunk pokes his head through the drawing room window. A wayward writer, name of Jack Trevor Story as it happens, who had driven home my equally drunken father from some 'literary' event in a most glamorous Pontiac convertible in which I later had a drive around the block. Only aware now how over the limit he must have been.


** September 1981 - 'A' Levels well and truly cocked up and rather than turning up at a prestigious University drama department with a spectacular Gulbenkian theatre I end up (beggars choice) in a former college of education situated across a collection of portakabins on the outskirts of Liverpool. Misery, misery, misery and copious 'hate it' letters home UNTIL I discover the friendship of those totally unrelated to my course and how to have a bit of fun.


** September 1994 - Grown up stuff and settling into a small flat with my fiancee. We'd been saying that it was about time that we found somewhere when a flat that my father had recently purchased had become vacant. It was a no-brainer, as the say, to take the flat but both us being from good christian families, we were a bit coy about the 'living in sin' thing. 'I suppose', I ventured, as I saw her off one evening on her train to Bromley at Victoria Station (Platform 3 to be most precise), 'it would be alright if we were actually engaged?'. Blushes all round and a formal proposal with ring several days later in Savoy Gardens then home to my parents to break the news.


** September 1996 - Our second month in our new house in Blackheath. For two years we'd saved hard and were able to put down a 25% deposit on a most practical and airy 1960s Gough Cooper townhouse. Yes, I was having to move 'sarf of the river' but I'd never look 'norf' again.


** September 2002, the 6th - The most painful end of my marriage and me sat alone in a new flat surrounded by packing cases. Free at last and yet feeling so sad and alone.


** September 7th (each year) - Dad's birthday.


** September 2015 (well, last week actually) - Bang up to date and a lovely, cosy dinner with my best friend of 24 years standing who's just about to leave London. Er, my ex-wife, actually!

[greenilex]

Thank you, thank you - better than a novel any day - and I am friends with JTS's daughter!

[Alison]

My mum always taught us that summer ended on Bank Holiday Monday!

Funnily enough I always find that the atmosphere of Proms concerts changes after the Monday: A distinctly autumnal feel.

[P. G. Tipps]

When I was young a year or two ago I never really noticed the seasons, apart from the fact that winter meant football and summer, annual holidays.

Now, I can't stand the dark days and nights not least that I get charged even more by Npower. Also, we have all these expensive time-wasting adverts on TV from the pretentious, snooty likes of M&S and John Lewis, though I admit I do enjoy the clever, funny ones like those for Irn Bru. Going to concerts in the dark and returning via dimly-lit streets and rail stations often populated by noisy, drunken youths and the sound of ear-splitting female screeching is not exactly my idea of an ideal accompaniment to the Bruckner 7 still ringing in my ears.

I now can't wait for the 21st Dec when this slow remorseless descent to the pits of a dark, dank, dreich and dreary hell is finally arrested and the yearned-for turnaround mercifully begins.

Only 110 days to go ...

[antongould]

When I was young a year or two ago I never really noticed the seasons, apart from the fact that winter meant football and summer, annual holidays.

Now, I can't stand the dark days and nights not least that I get charged even more by Npower. Also, we have all these expensive time-wasting adverts on TV from the pretentious, snooty likes of M&S and John Lewis, though I admit I do enjoy the clever, funny ones like those for Irn Bru. Going to concerts in the dark and returning via dimly-lit streets and rail stations often populated by noisy, drunken youths and the sound of ear-splitting female screeching is not exactly my idea of an ideal accompaniment to the Bruckner 7 still ringing in my ears.

I now can't wait for the 21st Dec when this slow remorseless descent to the pits of a dark, dank, dreich and dreary hell is finally arrested and the yearned-for turnaround mercifully begins.

Only 110 days to go ...

Scotty why don't you leave npower, as I have both as supplier and employer , they will only bring you expensive grief. And you will only upset them by calling them Npower - no capital no sense .....

And I liked your old first name better

[ahinton]

Scotty why don't you leave npower, as I have both as supplier and employer , they will only bring you expensive grief.

Wise advice indeed!

[Sir Velo]

Changing the clocks doesn't make a scrap of difference to the amount of daylight on any day.

Really? You do surprise me! I expect most of us thought BST created an extra hour's daylight, but thanks for putting us right!

But you may have to get up earlier to receive its full benefit.

Surely, that's the whole point of putting the clocks forward - that you don't have to get up early to get the benefit of daylight?

I'm afraid your arguments don't convince me of the merits of having the sun streaming into one's bedroom at five in the morning while getting dark before one gets home. Let's do as Jayne suggests and have an extra couple of hours daylight in the evening. It makes very little difference if it's pitch black or a grey dawn when one goes to work. What one wants is light when one is coming home; light offering the opportunity for outdoor exercise in the evening, pottering in the garden, or sitting in a café enjoying the sunset.

Having said all that: taken on its own terms, September has some of the most beautiful days of the year; those milky mornings, giving way to sharp metallic light is unique to this time of year.

[Roehre]

...
Surely, that's the whole point of putting the clocks forward - that you don't have to get up early to get the benefit of daylight? ....

Now you've got to go to bed late in order to sleep well in the necessary darkness.
All those kids who go to bed and cannot sleep or don't want to go as it still is light and consequently are tired in the morning. Very invigorating for the parents indeed.

And: there are not only people who are affected by S.A.D.; there are quite a lot suffering form "summer blues"?
Food for thoughts: Statistics show that most suicides occur with clear blue skies as well as in Spring time.

[Sir Velo]

Now you've got to go to bed late in order to sleep well in the necessary darkness.
All those kids who go to bed and cannot sleep or don't want to go as it still is light and consequently are tired in the morning. Very invigorating for the parents indeed.

Putting the clocks forward by, say GMT +2, at this time of year would only result in it staying light till 9 - well before the time most teenagers have gone to bed anyway! By October, this would be back to 7-8pm. Therefore, it's only a month or so (mainly in July/August when children are on holiday anyway) that your problem of very light evenings would arise, while for the rest of the year the benefits to the rest of us would be huge. Moreover, if you have a problem with unwelcome daylight why not install darker curtains or Velux blinds? These are what we use to keep out unwelcome daylight and most effective they are too!

And: there are not only people who are affected by S.A.D.; there are quite a lot suffering form "summer blues"?
Food for thoughts: Statistics show that most suicides occur with clear blue skies as well as in Spring time.

I think this may be a false analogy. Otherwise, surely, the countries with the highest suicide rates would be those with the greatest sunshine (ie the Mediterranean countries) and that is clearly not the case. Fortunately, there are relatively few suicides, and I really fail to see why the majority of the population should be in thrall to a minority of miseries who prefer stygian gloom to blue skies and warmth!

[Barbirollians]

Now you've got to go to bed late in order to sleep well in the necessary darkness.
All those kids who go to bed and cannot sleep or don't want to go as it still is light and consequently are tired in the morning. Very invigorating for the parents indeed.

And: there are not only people who are affected by S.A.D.; there are quite a lot suffering form "summer blues"?
Food for thoughts: Statistics show that most suicides occur with clear blue skies as well as in Spring time.

I very much doubt that double summer time would make difference to children going to bed - the effect merely would be to make it dark at 5 rather than 4 and 6 than 5 - in my experience that is only ever a problem between Late April to about now and it has been abating since the end of July !