Hanging on

Autumn is my favourite season, but I am loathe to say goodbye to summer just yet.

It may be grey outside today, and the rainclouds yesterday evening may have made the sky prematurely dark, so that walking home along rain-slick pavements I felt like it was October, but we haven't even had the August Bank Holiday weekend yet.

I am determined to wear something light and summery to my friend's Hen Party dinner down in Kent on Saturday night, and will be painting my toenails bright pink and packing my polka bikini in preparation for a Sunday spent by her pool.

I am hoping it stays dry on Sunday, so we can stand in the garden at C's Carnival party, as the light slips away behind the trees, and escape to it later on, when the heat from dancing to A's DJ set gets too much. I am not sure if I will make it to the Notting Hill Carnival itself, but if I do, I want to be able to stand in the street and eat corn cobs cooked over hot coals, sun beating down on my back, music throbbing across melting tarmac.

This is all rather optimistic. BBC weather predicts mixed sun and cloud, with highs of just 22 degrees (Celsius). But at least if it doesn't rain that's something.

Meanwhile, more gifts from the Norfolk garden were delivered last night, glowing yellow cherry tomatoes, furry peaches to be ripened on a sunny windowsill and the first of the apples, a marker if ever there was one of the turning seasons.

I can't fight it, and indeed have no real desire to. Autumn is on the horizon, whispering to me.