Photo by Diana Morrison 31-10-11
Autumn seems to be creeping in slowly this year. We have had more sunshine and warmth over the past couple of weeks than we had all summer. The leaves are still firmly attached to the trees, although they are beginning to change colour, and the temperatures are continuing to hold.
It is a strange season for me, one of melancholy and impending bereavement; invoking memories that are not knowingly mine of families in their wagons and bender tents striving to keep warm and find food and work, as the harvest season was drawing to a close. Of babies and elderly folk struggling with, now curable, diseases and fevers, their relatives wondering how many would survive to see the spring. When I lived in the UK, the bonfires, now firmly associated with Guy Fawkes, would epitomise the firing of a deceased person's vardo, as was the custom of the Romany people after a death and the sadness would remain until the spring, with its hope and promise of new life.
I find it extremely depressing that in modern day Ireland, there are still people who will be wondering how they are going to stay warm and whether there will be work for them throughout the unforgiving days of the approaching winter. Will they be able to feed and clothe their children? Will they be able to care for their elderly relatives? Unfortunately, the return of spring, will not make much of a difference to them.
Hibernation time for me, I think!
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