I think there’s something kind of magical about the changing of the seasons. There’s quite literally something in the air, the air you’re breathing is changing. I like to think of them as the moments of the blurry seasons. When one season hasn’t quite finished and the other hasn’t quite started so they’re not really one or other but somehow both. It’s not really a consecutive period of time, like a week or even a few days, which is why I think of them as moments within what I’ve called the blurry seasons.

Things feel different: the wind, the air pressure, people’s moods, the temperature, people’s attitudes. Things look different: the sky, the clouds, colours. But they’re not entirely different, not yet.

I think this is a bit of an obvious thing because it’s like pointing out the difference between hot and cold but what I’m referring to are the moments between the change. Not the time when someone says, “Oh my gosh, what happened? It feels like only yesterday it was below 10°C and I was grabbing my umbrella but today it’s 38°C and I’m checking the UV rays!”, which is something I’d actually say because I burn easily and I’m constantly checking and reapplying sunscreen, and also time moves very quickly.

But I love the times in between. Or the moments.

The times when it doesn’t matter if you’ve checked the weather three times that morning and left your umbrella at home only for some sudden downpour to completely saturate you on your short afternoon outing to grab a coffee. You cannot predict what will actually happen over the duration of the day. This is even more evident during the blurry seasons. If you had grabbed your umbrella that morning the wind may likely have blown it inside out rendering it useless anyway but by the afternoon the air will be eerily still.

There’s something about these times, these moments, when you’re caught in that downpour and you just have to laugh at how absurd the weather is. You might feel annoyed at being soaking wet but if you stop to think about it, it’s just hilarious. These moments are made even better when you make eye contact with a stranger and laugh about it together, neither of you knowing who the other is or what their life is like but in that moment the two of you know exactly how hilarious the situation you’ve both found yourself in actually is and you’re able to overlook the fact that you don’t know each other and just laugh.

Sure for the rest of the afternoon you might be damp and uncomfortable (which is why I’ve now brought a spare pair of socks and a spare shirt into the office, just in case) but for the rest of the day, sometimes even longer, you have that little moment.

I like to collect those moments of the blurry seasons because I think they’re nice little moments, ones worth holding onto. Most of them involve the rain or wind to be honest but they all occur during the same unknown season, as if the seasons have blurred together and pushed one into the next month so they’re all a little bit later than usual. Or maybe they’re slightly confused too.

Lizzie X