A stale month
I always think of August as the mirror-image of February. There is often little let-up from the extremes of temperature that typically occur during the preceding month, but by the fourth week change is in the air. The season seems to have overstayed its welcome and one greets the coming adjustment. As the strength and duration of daylight rapidly increases during February, so in August it declines. The caterpillar-gnawed foliage of the roadside has lost its brilliance. Swallows assemble and look to the waning sun, feeling the draw of Afric's shores. Flocculent thistledown, suspended in the heavy air ...cont. p94.
Yes, here at Latitude 52° North the season is short and we must make hay while the sun shines. Without winter we wouldn't appreciate the summer so much. It's all so beautiful, yet one day we must take our leave of it. I think the crop on the right is what I call "sweet corn" ...grown in this country only as cattle feed. In America this grain, proof against all normal digestive processes, is regarded as fit for human consumption. My American-born wife insists that it is "corn", which I regard as a generic term covering all grain crops, citing Samuel Palmer as my authority. This is a long-running marital-linguistic dispute, equalled in its ferocity only by the zed/zee and aluminium/aluminum controversies. A film user-upper shot.
A stale month
I always think of August as the mirror-image of February. There is often little let-up from the extremes of temperature that typically occur during the preceding month, but by the fourth week change is in the air. The season seems to have overstayed its welcome and one greets the coming adjustment. As the strength and duration of daylight rapidly increases during February, so in August it declines. The caterpillar-gnawed foliage of the roadside has lost its brilliance. Swallows assemble and look to the waning sun, feeling the draw of Afric's shores. Flocculent thistledown, suspended in the heavy air ...cont. p94.
Yes, here at Latitude 52° North the season is short and we must make hay while the sun shines. Without winter we wouldn't appreciate the summer so much. It's all so beautiful, yet one day we must take our leave of it. I think the crop on the right is what I call "sweet corn" ...grown in this country only as cattle feed. In America this grain, proof against all normal digestive processes, is regarded as fit for human consumption. My American-born wife insists that it is "corn", which I regard as a generic term covering all grain crops, citing Samuel Palmer as my authority. This is a long-running marital-linguistic dispute, equalled in its ferocity only by the zed/zee and aluminium/aluminum controversies. A film user-upper shot.