Tis the season to be cold!

This is from a daily prompt – Mid-Season Replacement

Here in Wales we are running toward the winter.
The days are getting duller and quieter.
The tourists have long since gone and the few
that are left tend to be walkers and wildlife watchers.
The shops are gearing up for Christmas and
the talk on the street is of pickles and jam.

The rain is cold and the wind cuts you through
your autumn jumper making you wish you had put on a thicker one.
Here we call these days soft-days.
They are meant for baking and writing.
Everything becomes a little sluggish as
the weather impedes you on your journey.
The colour comes from the last burst of growth
in the grass and the flame red trees.

Yet this isn’t my favourite time,
nor do I wish for the season gone.
Instead I long for the wind to take that biting
chill and make it worse. I want a day where
the cold makes the world smell fresh. But
while this in-between time is here I will enjoy it.
Except all I am doing, in truth is looking forward
to the day that freezes the ground and lets you
light a fire in the morning.
Those are the days that I long for.

Still as the last harvest is cut and packed and bottled,
as the pumpkins are placed on shelves to harden for storage,
and as the winter vegetables are put to bed
to grow over the coldest days, I can’t help but smile.
This year worked. This year we can pickle and jam.
This winter we will sit down to a meal where nothing has come from the shop.

I just hope that next year will be the same,
if not better. Still I won’t know until the autumn,
until that in-between time has come around again.