September lazy writers.

Like everywhere all over the globe, Autumn can only be understood when placed in relation to its peers. Here in Bolton, Lancashire, Autumn plays its special role.

Bolton does not suffer from an extreme climate. We have rare floods, rare gale force winds and rare sunshine. What we have in abundance is rain. Fine rain, heavy rain, persistent rain, rainy rain. The list goes on.

Where to start in cyclical pattern? Let’s say August. This is the month when Autumn stirs. She peeps out for cameo appearances for a few days at a time. Grey washed out skies, showers of rain, a bit of a chilly breeze. This is interspersed with perhaps a couple of days of fleeting sunshine, but more usually, blanket skies.

September; Autumn full swing. It begins to rain. All kinds of rain. And it goes on. Sure, there’ll be the odd dry day, but essentially it rains, and it keeps doing this until about June the next year. No glorious autumn colours in this part of Lancashire. It rains until one day all the leafs just fall in one exhausted lump to the ground. Whole generations of Boltonians have grown up not knowing the joy of kicking their juvenile feet through fallen, crispy foliage.

Winter arrives. It rains like Autumn, just colder.

Spring arrives. It rains like Autumn, just warmer.

Summer, hurrah! Two weeks (in a good year) of golden, life giving sun.

Then it’s August.

On a brighter note, there’s been no hose pipe ban in living memory.

My wife, a true Boltonian, says I exaggerate, and that the weather is much the same all over the country. Not true. When I drive home to Yorkshire over the Pennines and pass the White Rose marker by the side of the road the clouds part and the sun shines through like one of those Old Testament epics when god decides to put in an appearance.