A certain crispness in the morning air, the Year 7s walking to school in blazers just a bit big for them, the Last Night of the Proms… Summer is fading.

The garden flowers start to look like lanky teenagers – just a bit too tall for their green-leaved trousers – and the fresh compact colours of Spring and Summer start to flop and thin.

I feel a pull within to tidy up the bamboo supports and mildewed leaves and ‘put the garden to bed’ for another year. While the advertising at the garden centre claims I can keep displays ‘going well into Autumn’ I feel it’s not as it once was. I would rather have none of it than a pale imitation of its glorious Summer display.

I am not alone. I see neighbouring gardens with vegetable plots covered in plastic and garden canes firmly back in the shed.

My wiser self tells me that we are spoiling it for ourselves. There is more joy to come. The narrower colour pallet of browns and golds have their own particular beauty. The seed heads, set ready to be frosted, will bring Winter joy before the warmth of next Spring.

As it says in the Bible, ‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven’ (Ecclesiastes 3v1).

Let’s not rush ahead and miss out, but make sure we cherish the gifts that each day brings.

Written by Rev Beverley Lock, Diocese of Carlisle Vocations Team

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