By Tim Porteus

AUTUMN is in full swing – the final brambles, the fall of apples and the scent of chill in the air, the tapestry of colour on the trees and the cloak of darkness rapidly creeping over the day.

I was in the lovely wee village of Garvald a week ago and we encountered a typical autumn scene: hundreds of fallen apples lying on the ground, surrounded by rowan trees displaying vivid red berries.

The apples literally fell on our heads as we walked, admiring the scene and picking some for a pie. My wee daughter wanted to have an “apple shower” and so we stood under the trees. The mere touch of a branch resulted in a cascade of fruit. It was a wonderful ritual of autumn and I loved my kids’ joy in it all, but within me there was a nagging feeling. As I’ve got older, the oncoming of winter has had a depressive effect on me.

Is it a process that affects us more as we get older, with each autumn marking the slow closing of yet another year?

To be sure, autumn is a beautiful time of year and many people tell me it is their favourite season. I can understand that. The woods are magical, the sunsets seem more spectacular than at other times and it’s a time of harvest and forage. Our house is full of conkers, apples and colourful leaves collected on walks.

Another part of the magic is the migrating birds. I heard the geese above me the other day, honking and flying in formation as they headed for Aberlady. They arrive at this time of year with winter on their tails. The assembly of pink-footed geese there at this time of year is a truly spectacular sight and sound. Tens of thousands of them gather at Aberlady Bay during their migration south.

It almost has the atmosphere of an airport; countless numbers of honking birds arriving from Iceland and Greenland, joining an already crowded bay. There are thousands of excited geese mingling together, sharing flight stories and looking forward to the next stage of their journey. Many feed in nearby fields before taking off once again to venture further south.

As they fly over us their honking sounds like cackling witches. I often hear them when in the woods, as I did the other day. I looked up to see them through the branches of balding autumn trees, flying in their characteristic V flight formations. It seemed their honking was warning me of something: “Winter is coming…winter is coming.”

Some people of course follow the example of the geese and head for a kinder climate as winter approaches. But for most of us it’s a case of ritual and preparation. Hallowe’en, really a later development of the Celtic Samhain festival, is one such ritual.

But for me now, despite my love of autumn’s display, it cloaks my senses with a sense of melancholy which I find increasingly difficult to throw off.

I spend as much time outdoors as possible in the other seasons but the darkness of winter forces me to retreat into my home. Hence we will soon be decorating our wee house with cosy and colourful lights to ward off winter’s dark blanket. But this dark blanket can cover our emotions as well, not so easily warded off.

Many people I know likewise dread winter because of its depressive effect on their mental health. They wish that, like the geese, they could find a way of escaping the worst of it. I have often wished I was a bear who could hibernate away the winter months.

But we are not bears or geese, and in my own battles with the oncoming of winter I have come to understand more than ever the importance of social connections and preparing for them. The truth is winter can be a time of flowering and rebirth, just like spring but in a different way – the flowering of friendship and rebirth of social connections perhaps lost or waned in the flurry of summer activities.

In the past it was so self-evident. People huddled in each other’s homes around the fire, keeping each other company. Like so many things these traditions have now been commercialised, yet the simple antidote of social connection in the approaching dark times remains as powerful as it ever was for us.

It should be a time for visiting and getting together; making time for friends and coming together in defiance of the darkness. And thinking especially of those for whom the cold and dark becomes an enforcer of confinement because of age or vulnerability.

Winter should be a time of visiting and welcoming. This, I think, is an antidote to that depressive winter effect. Maybe that’s why the geese honk so much. They are actually meeting up and having their version of a ceilidh!