Summer Farewells.



Summer is departing. The grey days seem to be settling in. The warm sunshine we all seem to have become used to is getting lower and lower in the sky. The garden is beginning to die back. The glorious colours of summer have disappeared and though there is still some colours they are more muted. Deep purple,dark crimson and soft golds seem to reign. Almost as if nature knows all will die back and retreat under the warmed earth. The damp evenings, cooling quickly, shrouding everything under a mist.

But sitting on the telegraph poles chattering earnestly to each other, the swallows seem to be planning their journey. They are another reminder to us that summer is coming to an end.

It seems like such a short time ago that they came sweeping and diving across the garden greeting us with their noisey chatter, reminding us that warmer days were on the way. We have watched as they flew in and out of the brick sheds feeding their young, not caring about us one iota. We've watched as the little ones were pushed out of the nest and fell to the ground where they have hopped around timidly chirping to their parents who were never to far from them. But now they prepare to leave us for the long journey South.

The swallows are glad to go when Autumn puts the cold around our gardens. This chattering on the wires is a song of gladness. If they have any fear about the daunting flight ahead we know none of it. They are truly stoic creatures who answer the call of nature with such gay abandon. A few may fail to reach their destination but the swallow in migration flies at only half speed so that the weaker
amongst them may survive the long journey.
Many have twittered their last song and will never return. Many more will return, to swoop and fly and to sing of the summer that they bring with them. I look forward to their return and I wish them well.