Autumn dawns on another English summer.

Autumn dawns on another English summer.

Autumnal mists are gathering on the moors, hills, valleys and dales, those dramatic mountain ranges, the British coastlines with their crashing, tumbling seas, the foaming waters that rise up and fall in a state of revolt. The seaside resorts are beginning to lose that summery complexion and the daytrippers have been and gone. There is something sad, regretful and woebegone about the British isles. The summer is now part of the rich tapestry of history, another season is upon us and 2017 is slowly declining into grey winter or maybe we'll get another temperately mild winter.

The lights are gradually dimming, the daylight no longer visible at roughly 8.00 in the evening and it's becoming increasingly darker as the family barbecues of June and July have now been consigned to a fond corner of our memories. It is now that we begin to think of rich harvests, the season of mellow mists and fruitfulness and playing with conkers at school if indeed this yearly ritual still takes place.

On the ground the yellowing leaves from once heavily laden green trees are circling around our parks, then doing the paso doble with a certain style and grace. It seems to me that the whole population of the blackbird community have now decided to camp out on the vast acres of grass. They jump and skip playfully from one tree to the next indecisively, large birds with  inquisitive eyes and noses. Much to their horror there is very little on offer this morning so it may be advisable to come back later on this afternoon. You never know.

Meanwhile this morning genuinely feels like the end of the British summer. There are the first tentative showers and then more rain is forecast for later on in the day. This is the normally the time of the year when we all shake our heads despairingly, lament the awful British weather and just gaze out of our windows thoughtfully. Then again maybe it wasn't that bad because there were a couple of days and weeks when it felt like 1976 when that remarkable British heatwave kept going and going and only stopped at the August Bank Holiday with a thunderstorm.

But now it's time to withdraw into our living rooms, huddle around the wintry central heating, pull up our coat collars, wear an extra layer of clothing sometime in October or November and reflect on those ripe red strawberries and cold lagers outside timber beamed pubs. This was  the year it didn't quite work out for Andy Murray at Wimbledon and then a largely victorious English cricket team claimed all of the most positive headlines.  But we'll still salute Andy Murray because he has become the first British player to win the men's singles at Wimbledon since Fred Perry way back when. And that has to be worth a round of applause or several.

Still here we are in Britain and most of us, presumably, are looking forward to Strictly Come Dancing, BBC One's Saturday evening programme that hits our TV screens tomorrow night. This is somehow the dress rehearsal for autumn, a happy harbinger of things to come, men and women in glittery clothes, stamping their feet and swaying their partners across a showbizzy dance floor. It has to be one of the best telly programmes ever to fill our TV screens since the Generation Game.

Initially I found Strictly to be something of a slow burner, one of those programmes that I couldn't quite relate to for no particular reason. But now I've been converted to Strictly if only because it's just fun packed and thoroughly entertaining. We all need a good old fashioned waltz or a riotous bout of disco dancing to illuminate our Saturday evenings. Then we look at those gushing celebrities with their breathlessly twinkling feet and tell ourselves over and over again that life is just brilliant.

Shortly Britain will be converging patriotically on the Royal Albert Hall for the Last night at the Proms and then we'll really know that autumn is here. Here we witness Britain in all her richly jolly and jingoistic pomp, waving Union Jacks heartwarmingly and sentimentally because we've always done it like that. This is followed by that charming moment when the audience bob up and down harmoniously in time to Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory. Wherever you look at the Royal Albert Hall, the audience will be richly celebrating English classicism and that can be no bad thing.

We shall look at the fine looking bust of Henry Wood and know that a traditional corner of London is in its element, fully enjoying that British sense of occasion, bursting at the seams with pride and looking forward to the changing seasons. Or maybe not depending on your point of view. So we look at the dripping rain on our window sills, wistfully longing for spring daffodils and then resigned to darkness at 4.00 in the afternoon. If only time could, quite literally, fly. Don't you love the transitional nature of the seasons. Great. Good to be alive.

 Outside though, those trees are still shaking and trembling, moving from side to side like those windscreen wipers on your car. The autumnal winds are blowing with an increasing intensity and there is a slight shiver in the air. There seems to have been a huge invasion of gnats and flies hovering and loitering persistently in the British air or maybe that's just summer for you. We're not sure why there have been so many of them but it's hard to know where they're coming from because there's quite clearly no incentive for them to be there.

Anyway summer is winding down, wending its weary way back into a private corner of autumnal seclusion where nobody can find it. The year is now shutting down and locking its front doors, the last orchestral drum roll at the Last Night at the Proms still in our ears and autumn's grand entrance  not that far away. The children are back at school and  the Jewish New Year(Rosh Hashanah) will be with us in a couple of weeks time. Time for apples and honey, repenting our sins at our leisure and exchanging pleasantries, a time to be at one with the world and cherish those frostily pretty landscapes that autumn always brings us.

Soon the combine harvesters will be busy at work on a hundred English fields and farmers all around the country will be planting, nurturing, caring and loving their very own piece of land. It'll be time for the Harvest Festival. The mind goes back to my primary school when every pupil was required to bring in every conceivable food you can think of.

There were rows of tinned baked beans, loaves of bread and what looked like half of our local supermarket. Next to the school assembly hall a wonderful old piano tinkled its ivories and the pre- lesson assembly would sing the praises of  Kingsmill bread and Heinz Baked Beans. Oh for the wheat and barley, warm tomato soups by that roaring log fire, rubbing our hands together, plucking out neat sweat shirts and pullovers out of our chest of drawers before slumping back in the sofa most contentedly. Anybody for a beef stew. If only autumn could speak. Now that would be fun.