To live without seasons might be peaceful. Perhaps Christmas could happen by choice, or to suit everyone’s diary. Maybe Birthdays could be piled into one week, choosing just one present for a birthday gathering might be easier than standing in a gift shop annually, trying to find the least unacceptable and appropriate offering. Shops themselves could leave holly up in July or display tulips in November. Weather could be random, snow in June no longer shocking, similarly January’s heatwave. This is not how it is, of course. But even as we run for cover in August, outraged by the downpour that means a hastily gathered picnic, or bask unexpectedly in February sunshine, we are comforted by the rhythm of the year. The small, almost hidden, chill of September as the days begin to shorten. The newly detected warmth in early April sun, the blanketing gloom of November’s afternoons all make sense. We’re more than comforted, we know without thinking what the seasons mean. They are part of us, in our very selves: as true as blood, as sure as bone. We mustn’t fight their sway, any more than we should fight time, instead we should float like sticks in the stream, enjoying what we cannot change, what we cannot control.

still don’t know whether to take a cardigan, though