Autumn Colours
October 25th, 2009 by Zofia
Today has been cold, really cold, the kind of cold that causes the people who are outdoors to wear coats, scarves and gloves. The general feeling is that winter is well and truly on its way. It is the middle of October and the seasons are changing here in London.
When I look out the window of my house I see a tree, I am not sure what sort of tree it is, all I know about this tree is that is of the deciduous variety, meaning that as the seasons change so does this tree. It is quite a novelty to live in a country which seems to have so many trees which change with the seasons, in New Zealand where I grew up I can’t really recall many deciduous trees, most seem to be evergreen.
I have watched this tree outside my house change through 7 seasons, I have seen it completely bare and covered with snow in the winter; sprouting new growth in the spring; lush with bright green leaves during the summer; and threadbare with orange, yellow, and red leaves in the autumn. For each season the tree is beautiful but there is something about the colour of the leaves during autumn that strike me as remarkable.
There are so many more colours in autumn than in any other season: winter is white, summer and spring are green, but autumn has gold, yellow, orange, brown, red, it is a riot of fiery colours which brighten up the typically grey autumn skies. Most mornings on my way to work I walk through a park where the green grass is completely littered with these multi-coloured leaves which have fallen from their trees, I love the look of these discarded leaves on the ground but even more than that I love the look of the leaves that the tree hasn’t shaken off yet, especially in the early morning when the sun filters through all the gaps between leaves and branches – the golden glow of autumn is magnified and makes suffering the cold a little bit more bearable.