Universal Truth

Dear Reader,

Autumn

Autumn has arrived, Keat's 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness', is here.  Certainly the Cotswold's are looking very beautiful at the moment, full of very colourful red and gold trees.  This year's harvest moon  - the name for the first full moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox was a classic, bathed in rose gold.  The name 'harvest moon' derives from the fact farmers used to rely on its light to work late into the night collecting crops ahead of winter.  In autumn the moon's orbital path in comparison to the earth means it rises sooner, and brings noticeably more illuminated nights.  At the time of the harvest moon it rises almost as soon as the sun sets, hence the bright orange overtones.
When the moon shines full above our heads, humans react in strange ways.  In some hospitals and psychiatric wards it is still an accepted school of thought that full moons lead to busy nights.  That is why we refer to a state of madness as "lunacy".

From Dorothy Wordsworth's journal, 1800 (Westmorland).

'We pulled apples after dinner, a large basket full.   We walked before tea by Bainriggs to observe the many-coloured foliage.  The oaks dark green with some yellow leaves, the birches generally still green, some near the water yellowish, the sycamore crimson and crimson-tufted, the mountain ash a deep orange, the common ash lemon colour, but many ashes still fresh in their summer green'.

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Universal Truth

Everyone knows that Philip Larkin wrote:

"The fuck you up
your mum and dad,
they may not mean to
but they do".

And what Philip Larkin knew,
I know to be true.

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With best wishes, Patricia