England, My England and It’s That Time Again

By Ian Copestick

England, My England

A miserable wet evening,
grey skies and cold wind.
England, my England.
This land of grey and green.
Summer's now over, and
normal transmission has
been resumed. Brooding
skies with treacherous
clouds, nothing to look
forward to. Just month
after month of god awful
weather, being cold and
wet most of the time.
Well,  no that's not quite
true, the colours and
smells of autumn always
give a lift to my heart.
But it's still a bad payoff
for nearly nine months
of misery.
England, I love you, I
hate you too.

It’s That Time Again

My big, thick, winter
overcoat has been
rescued from the
wardrobe. Short
sleeved shirts are
pushed to the back
of the drawers, and
woolly jumpers are
brought to the front.
Yes, it's that time
again. My thin, cotton
Converse go under the
bed, out come the big,
leather boots.
It's weird, but my taste
in music changes in
the Winter, too. " Pink
Moon " by Nick Drake
becomes one of my
favourite records.
The stark, sparse
sound of just the
acoustic guitar, and his
melancholy voice seems
the perfect soundtrack
to brown, naked trees,
their branches swaying
in the harsh,cold breeze.
It's a brutal beauty that
Winter possesses, but
it's no less evocative for
it. The shallow, splashy
loveliness of Summer
seems almost adolescent,
compared to the grave,
aged, stern charms of
Winter.
I often say how much I
hate it, but that obviously
isn't true.
I just think that three
months is far too long.
I'd love it even more if
it only lasted three weeks.