A poem about Autumn, this one. It’s the kind of thing I’d usually write and then forget about, only to discover it sometime later and add it on here…in Spring. Not this time though! This time, I’m unusually on the ball!
‘Leaves on the grass’ was written after a particularly strenuous weekend of clearing leaves from our back garden. I felt rather pleased with myself for doing it, if I’m honest, as it’s the kind of job that is usually left to wait by me. Then, I end up having to do it in the freezing cold of late November or early December when the ground is wet and I end up filthy and soaked. This year though, it was a spur of the moment decision on a particularly sunny weekend when I felt a bit more energetic than usual. And so, old clothes on and gardening gloves firmly in place, I dragged our brown bin onto the lawn and got cracking.
The resultant poem came after when I felt thoroughly work out by my exertions. Here you go.
Leaves on the grass.
First, it's leaves on the grass,
suddenly noticeable,
a dozen at most
but added to daily
and then, months after shedding blossom,
small brown, red, green eye shapes
decorate the edges of the tarmac on the driveway,
escaping in the coming days onto the car, the road
and when you look again
the falling Autumn rain
seems to gradually erase all colour,
like a life slowly sliding away,
too weak to fight, too old to care anymore,
too afraid of losing all dignity
to heave on anything too bright,
visible again by scrolling through images on a phone,
a reminder of a distant rousing prime,
gone, but not quite forgotten,
stirred occasionally by the thrilling glee
of a fresh bright morning
when the fountain of youth seems to flow
without fear and we stride out
and marvel at the amber and gold
before it leaves us again
and we brace ourselves, steeled
for the cold and the dark of what comes next.
There is a more thoughtful side to the poem. It’s not just about Autumn in that I’ve tried to add something about ageing and life in there too. I think a nod to Gillian Clarke’s poem ‘October’ must be given here as I’ve tried to look at similar themes, if only briefly.
I tried to capture the sense of getting older here – perhaps after feeling so bloody tired once I’d finished doing the leaves – as well as the feelings I regularly have about being so tired out by things that wouldn’t have normally had such a great effect on me. So, there’s a brief few lines about getting older (Autumn being late in the year) and catching sight of your younger self in photographs. This was after my wife sent me a photo of me at my son’s nursery sports day, some time ago. It shocked me to see just how young I looked and made me think about maybe feeling slightly self conscious (or just even more self conscious) I’ve become after a health scare.
Hopefully, the poem ends on a cheerful, hopeful note. There are lines about going out for a walk in the bright, bracing cold of an Autumn day and enjoying the vivid colours of the season and I think that’s me being about as optimistic as I ever get.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the poem. Feel free to leave some feedback as I always enjoy reading people’s comments.
A new season means changes in everyone’s lives. Be it easing away from the t-shirts and shorts of summer into longer sleeves and layers or just the fact the the days are getting shorter and we have to adjust to longer, darker evenings, it’s all change as we slide into Autumn.
With that in mind, I thought I’d write an Autumn Bucket List for parents with younger children. There are loads of things that you can do with kids in Autumn, but I thought I’d pick out a few that either my own kids enjoyed when they were younger or those that I have some experience of.
Go and kick some leaves around. The first item on my list is really quite simple and doesn’t take a great deal of time or effort. It’s not one I can really go and do now as my children are probably a bit old to be doing it, but they loved it when they were little. There’s a lot to be said for simple, free fun like this.
When my two were younger we’d often go out on Autumn walks to local parks or beauty spots and the joy they would get from heading out in their wellies and kicking piles of fallen leaves around the place was amazing. It was a joy to watch and if I think about it, I can still hear their giggles and squeals of delight! They used to like making big leaf piles and then jumping in them from above, as well as just picking handfuls up and throwing them up in the air too! And there are two benefits here – it’s free and while they’re jumping around, they’re staying warm! Watch out for hedgehogs in the leaves though. We never encountered any, but you never know.
Speaking of those spikey little creatures, you could attempt to make a hedgehog hotel with the little ‘uns this Autumn. And if not with them, then for them, as keeping an eye out for the hedgehog could well develop into a game all of its own for a short while!
This isn’t one I’ve ever done, but it was regularly on the lists when my children were younger. It seems quite simple. You’ll need an old box, but a sturdy weather-proof one, something like a wooden wine crate or, if you’re feeling adventurous, you could make one out of plywood or just adapt something else. I’ve seen them made out of upturned basket and even lumps of thick polystyrene packaging.
Then you’ll need something to make a tunnel – more plywood or maybe an old cut off length of pipe – for the entrance and also a hole in your box so the tunnel has somewhere to lead to! You’ll need to make another, smaller hole for ventilation too.
After the box is finished and a lid put on, you’ll need to fill it with dry leaves or even straw and then place it somewhere hedgehog friendly like underneath soil and leaves. Just make sure that the entrance and the ventilation hole aren’t blocked. And there you go; you have a hedgehog hotel! All you need now is an occupant!
A similar, but larger scale idea, is to go den building with the kids. This is also a lot of fun for adults too and I’d often find that while my kids had lost interest, I was still lugging logs around or trying to make the perfect roof out of foliage and twigs!
Quite a few parks and forests have cottoned on to this as a good way of attracting visitors and often have areas where there are plenty of logs and fallen branches to build with. Failing this, you could just scour an area of the woods for fallen branches and just start building. As long as it’s off any kind of pathway and you’re not harming the environment, you’ll be fine. Don’t resort to pulling branches from actual trees though, but I guarantee that you’ll have an excellent time den building!
Another fun thing to do this Autumn, especially if you have kids is to collect your pumpkins for Halloween. Now, I know that it’s far easier to just buy them in a local supermarket, but a lot of places like parks and farm parks make a bit of an event of it nowadays. So, not only can you wander through a field of pumpkins, carefully eyeing up the perfect specimen to go outside your front door, but you might also get to take a tractor ride, get a lesson in carving your own pumpkins or just draw your face or pattern out for someone who’s a little bit more of an expert to carve for you. If you’re really lucky there might even be a cafe on site for you to relax and take the chill out of your body with coffee and a slice of cake!
We did pumpkin picking a couple of times when our kids were younger and just the sight of a huge field of pumpkins left them in awe! The fact that they got to draw their designs on and then help to carve it out made for a fantastic morning. We even managed to get their pumpkins home in one piece too!
Sometimes though, it’s the simple things that make Autumn fun. And what could be better than wrapping up, getting their wellies on and going for a bracing Autumn walk? These are best taken on those lovely crisp, sunny Autumn days and if there’s a park or a forest to explore, then all the better! You can get some exercise and some fresh air and the Autumn light might help you get some brilliant photos as well. And the beauty of this type of pastime is that it can be kept going even as your little ones get older. My two are 16 and 13 now and, although they might grumble a bit, we always have a nice time on our Autumn walks. I think the ice cream van at the end of some of the walks help, but either way, myself and my wife really enjoy getting out on this type of day.
Scarecrow Festivals seem to be a very British thing. So, if you’re reading this outside of the UK you’ll either find them extremely strange or you might be inspired enough to start your own version where you live! It was something I first became aware of around 20 years ago, when I started teaching at a rural school near Halifax. I distinctly remember driving home one evening and repeatedly spotting novelty scarecrows in people’s gardens, in the windows of shops and just in many of the fields that dominated the area. Shortly afterwards I would find out that this was all to do with the Norland Scarecrow Festival, which still continues to this day.
The fun of a scarecrow festival comes in how the scarecrows are actually made and dressed and participants tend to go to great lengths to come up with imaginative ideas year upon year. Over the years I’ve seen lots of Star Wars characters, Darleks, Super Mario, firemen, Minions, Roald Dahl characters…and even just scarecrows!
Often there’s something like a scarecrow trail to follow and this is always something that younger kids love to do, especially if there’s a list to tick off and maybe even a prize of some kind at the end! The bigger the festival, the more there is going on though, and if you’re lucky there might even be a scarecrow building event. Who knows, you could be building your own scarecrow to be included in your local festival before you know it!
So, there you have it – hopefully, a stress free and reasonably cheap Autumn Bucket List. I hope you enjoyed reading and that it gives you plenty of food for thought. Feel free to let me know what you plan to get up to or even if you agree with any of my suggestions!
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