S.A.D.

Seasonal Adjustment Disorder is something that I've never had to struggle with. I love all the seasons. Each has it's own personality, joys and faults!

Sheffield Pk Gardens

My favourite season is probably Autumn. As Summer fades, the sun lingers low in the sky and the light becomes golden and shadows streeeeeeetch! Trees turn orange and yellow and red, and a carpet of rust and gold and coffee-coloured leaves builds on the ground. The first frost sparkles. Warm breath steams the air.

We're not quite there yet, Summer is lingering this year. The mild weather since the Equinox has allowed exploring the gradual changes of the season to play out in sunshine. It also means leaving the house with boots and jumpers, with coats and thick socks to hand, and heading home in an overly hot car, with the a/c blasting, most of your clothes stuffed into a bag, and feeling somewhat boiled from the climbing temperature.

I don't mind piling on layers of clothes in Winter, I love the crisp air, freshly fallen snow, dark evenings, cozy fires, and watching stormy seasons. Horizontal rain has it's place, it's dramatic, it's elemental, and it makes a hot bath so much more appreciated!

Chartham Forest Scool

'There is no such thing as the wrong weather...'

We all know this, and despite the time it takes to pile on the quantities of layers required to work outside when the temperature struggles - and often fails - to reach double digits, there is a kind of snuggled sensation within three sweaters, hat, and gloves. I have to say that the facemasks used in covid have been used repeatedly to help warm cheeks, nose, and the air before it is breathed in.

Greenwich, London

Every year, I wonder at the first signs of Spring. The smell after rainfall, leaf buds emerging, blossom bursting, new life, and driving to work at sunrise. Farm visits and Lambing Days. The school year reaching halfway, so children very settled, progressing with skills, and relishing the slow warming of the Earth.

Although droughts and heat waves can be challenging, the Summer Term at school is a time that children seem to embrace. Chasing butterflies, looking for bugs, watching the birds, and seeing everything in full bloom,

The new life that arrived in Spring is venturing out, we get to see and hear baby birds, find the tracks of nocturnal visitors, and draw them in with food. We lounge in the grass, we listen to buzzing bees, and watch clouds drift across the sky.

The Copse Basrcamp

Summer is brilliant. The ease of leaving the house with just keys and not hunting for coats and boots... long evenings to spend with friends, waking with the birds, and, as I work in education, time off to really relax.

But, this is where my personal Seasonal Adjustment challenge creeps in: Dark mornings!

For months the sun has slowly lit my room, a gradual brightening from 4 am until I awake sometime between 5 and 6 am, feeling rested, happy to make a cuppa and check email from bed, or garden, or beach, before it's time for work...

Now, I'm frequently dragged out of slumber by the alarm clock and I don't like it! More of a 'Screaming Alarm Disdain' than anything else.

It does mean I feel more tired during this half of the year, but the good outweighs the bad.

In the mornings I head to work under a sunrise and colourful sky, if the night has been clear, layers of mist hang in the air between the hills, and follow the twists and turns of the River Stour as I pass.

Sometimes I catch the fox, still up and wondering why people are invading his space.

Resident Fox

Forest School is a mass of Beech nut cases underfoot, acorns drop from the spreading Oaks, and the Rowans and Hawthorns sport bright red berries. And then there's the fungi... Some sneak in as tiny little umbrellas hiding in the woods, while others pop up and demand attention!

As sunset sinks more into the afternoon than the evening I get to drive home in time to watch the sun sink on the North Kent Coast.

North Kent Coast

Whitstable

At home, it's a time of comfort food, good books, and blankets on the sofa.

The weekends are for lazing a little, catching up on rest, as well as exploring, hiking, walking, through woods and along beaches.

The slow change, from Equinox to the shortest day, the incremental change of trees from fully laden, to gold and bronze, and naked bark, the shortening of the days, the drawing out of the nights, is the privilege of watching nature put itself to bed. Like me, it is tired, it's lived Summer to its fullest and now needs to rest!

Humans add glowing lights all around, echoing the twinkling stars above. Festivals and Holidays come and go in a flurry of food, music, celebration, and joy, to celebrate this slumber and to wait with baited breath for the first sign of awakening...

Every season is necessary. Each has it's too hot/too cold, too dark/too bright, challenges.