All afternoon I’ve had Kurt Weill’s September Song swimming around my brain. Weill composed the beautiful, liltingly melancholy tune; the lyrics, which I erroneously thought were by Bertolt Brecht (well, he and Weill did work together a lot), turn out to be by the American playwright Maxwell Anderson. I’ve just listened to a recording of Lotte Lenya singing September Song – who better to sing it? This is one ear worm I’m quite happy to have mooching around in my cranium.

It’s still warm enough to have the windows open, but the sound of the wind ruffling the leaves on the plane trees outside is distinctly autumnal. We haven’t yet reached the tipping point of the autumn equinox – that’s just over three weeks away. I know for a lot of people who’ve grown up on this side of the world, there’s a back-to-school feel about this time of year. I don’t feel that – that dread was late January/early February for me. We had school holidays in September, a term break of a week or two, in early spring. Often we would stay at the family holiday home on the south coast of Victoria. The house was surrounded by a mix of native Australian and European flora, and I particularly associate freesias with this time of year. They grew in clumps, in between banksias and gum trees, and I loved their delicate scent and jewel-like colours. I still do, though I rarely come across them.

So, autumn is on the horizon, and it’s there to be embraced. There will be golden days, downpours and muddy puddles, gloriously coloured leaves, that peppery gunpowder smell from fireworks, toasted crumpets, apple crumble – or apple grumble as we call it in this household.

And just before the official start of astronomical autumn, I’ll be leading a walk around the Nine Elms area of Battersea, focussed on less well-known aspects of the area’s rich history and celebrating the local community’s resilience. It’s on Saturday 20th September starting at 11am. Find more details here.