The Season You Didn't Know You Were Waiting For

Sweet Summer's End: The quiet magic of a subtle transition.

Listen here if you want to also enjoy the swirl of the pipes and read a book while the birds sing…

What if the end of summer isn't an ending at all, but a beginning in disguise?

Greetings from the moss,

If the camera weighs me down, weds me to the low places and the details, it is sketching that pulls my eyes up. First the dancing drifting clouds, next the play of light across the hillside. The seasonal colour. And as I look out of the window once again, I am impatient to ascend.

Yet with proximity, intensity and perspective become elusive. I had it in mind to spend the month bringing floral colour into my sketches, but the difference frustrates me and I am happier with monochrome drawings made among the trees on the edge of the moss. Amid the mess I am gathering ways of making marks that have appeal, abstracting shape and line, taking a few chances.

This seemingly endless wind calls and pushes the mood. I head for the wood. Swallows sit on wires; summer feels like it’s slipping away. The wind proves an asset: tufted hair grass sways. Lengthen the shutter and ironically I’m now standing waiting for the wind to pick up…

Early morning on a hot day. The briefest of showers: inhale the petrichor. Water the plants and then a quick walk in the still cool. Pause to watch swallows swooping low over marshy ground, enjoy their antics just a little longer. Gatherings of birds on wires—starlings perhaps—await the summer’s end. Sheep still sleep. Golden barley hangs its head as if in shame. Black cows watch, silently chewing, gathered in the corner of the field. Beyond, sun glints off passing cars, from buildings.

After the hills, the pace is leisurely, relaxed, the contours kind. Small spheres of red, the last currants—tart, tongue tingling, the taste of summer and jams and jellies. Across the valley the hills look flat, faded in the wash, their colour muted. There is little hint of the kaleidoscope of flower and leaf that awaits the curious walker. And yesterday I was there. Sometimes I pinch myself.

Autumn is gathering: red rowan berries hang heavy, lime tree fruits litter the path, orange and red burst through the green of cherry leaf. Shadows are stealthily lengthening, tree trunks and the ground equally their play park. Speckled wood butterflies land, relax into the early sun.

The ground is dry, bone dry. The trees have exhausted their supply and now stand bruised by drought and wind. You can see it in their demeanour, in their already curling falling green leaves.

Another hot day. Late in the garden, as the sun lowers a sound reverberates. At first I think it a car stereo, but then a swirl of pipes carries on the air.¹

Sweet summer’s end. August: an ambivalent month, neither summer nor autumn. An at times hot sticky mix of days.

I’ve been waiting for the temperatures to drop at night, for the air to still and the moisture to gather. It’s been an unusually warm and long wait. Finally the mist formed, thickened, promised intrigue, and as I head out it seems I’m not the only one who’s been waiting: I’ve never seen so many spiders’ webs. To think that this might be a single night’s work.

The weeds along the path are suddenly glamorous, festooned with diamonds, garlanded by pearls. The tree that overhangs the path carries full decorations; silk precipitated, collected, hangs from every branch tip. It is eerie, and beautiful.

The edge of the moss. Purple haze, grey mist. Scattered Scot’s pine against a backdrop of hidden hills.

It takes me until this last sunny afternoon to stop doing, and sit in the shade with a book. And even then I am easily distracted: house martins chatter out of sight, bees buzz the yarrow and I examine the way that colours distort in the empty wet glass of a cool drink.

Shadows dance on the pages of my book, which has a hypnotic and slightly soporific effect. Why does it take until the final curtain to slow and appreciate just being: outside in the shade on a warm summer’s day? Sounds: birdsong, bees, pages being turned.

Over the summer I have been writing every second week. It’s given me chance to reflect, and I’m contemplating ‘what next?’ as I approach two years’ of writing these letters. Fortnightly feels comfortable—and yet there is so much to share as the seasons scroll. Next week I’ll send you a shorter visual postcard: some of the photos I can’t squeeze in to my letters. The simple gifts of the early morning that take the breath away.

Until next week,

I’m delighted when you let me know that you enjoy the small beauty that I share. Thank you, and if you choose to make a small contribution towards my growing number of graphite blocks and sketchbooks, I’m especially grateful.

This is the simple option I have adopted in place of ‘paid’—we all experience subscription fatigue.

Postscript

Remember those arctic starflowers that enchanted us in spring? I know to look out for their fiery autumn tints, but this is the first year I have noticed their seed heads. Each one a perfect template for a football. Now, I wonder??

Words and images copyright © Michela Griffith 2025 except where otherwise credited

1. Do listen to the audio!