Conkers, bonfires, sheepskin, changing leaves, red wine ….. September is the best month of the year.

Fact.

It holds the day of International Peace, which I feel is not a bad start but it only gets better from there …. I was born! On September the 13th 1986 in Hammersmith hospital this baby came in to the world. Apparently some other things may have happened on this day as well …. On September the 13th 122 AD the beginnings of Hadrian’s Wall commenced, on September the 13th in 1989 Desmond TuTu lead the largest anti-Apartheid march in South Africa, on the September the 13th in 1503 Michelangelo began work on the statue of David. Unfortunately their work was kind of eclipsed by my birth.

Now, aside from my birth September has a lot about it. It is a month with a weight of transition and change – more so in my opinion than New Year’s Eve. What ever really changes that night other than your perceptions of some of your ket-head friends?

You can feel it in the misty morning air, this is the month between summer and autumn when you get your act together ready for the coming months. Sexy Mumma Natura kindly gives us a few pointers that it might be a good idea to get our noses back to the grindstone. One being the days start getting noticeably shorter, signalling the end of summer drinking and lax self-discipline, welcoming the point where people start to go home earlier. It could be that we’ve been conditioned to feel this way through school. When we’re kids, every September is a new academic year and so as the days start getting shorter, the long division starts getting longer. Each September signals a new and harder tier in your academic life, and if you’re a closet nerd like me, massive excitement at getting back to school with my brand new Jonny Quest Pencil Case . Or it could be inherent and part of some sort of natural cycle we all still adhere to a certain degree. Copying dormice stocking up acorns for winter (I’ve seen Bambi), we stop drinking cider and fumbling behind hay bales and harvest all that’s been sown. A month where all the seeds you’ve planted over the year are reaped and put to good use. Either way, inherent or conditioned, there is a certain pressure to kick yourself up the arse this month.

September is also a month of transition in fashion – each year we pack up our flimsy skirts and dresses that weren’t really done any justice by the tepid British Summer and we’re allowed to start wearing some serious clothes. Tailoring becomes important, leather and lambswool, cashmere and sheepskin are all brought out of the closet and suddenly getting dressed is brilliant. More thought is put in to getting ready, the masses of different fabrics to layer to keep warm. I genuinely find this exciting. I haven’t always; I used to be much more of a flimsy dress girl and loved floaty summer clothes. This was until I went travelling and wore them there. I realised then that they’d never this good walking down Streatham High Road, so I started not to bother.

September is the month when some of the most horrendous acts of terrorism occurred. However, this is only my first post so I’m not going to start theorising what change that has brought about. I’ll leave that to the people who think they know what they’re talking about.

September’s flower is the forget-me-not. For anyone who found or lost love this month.

Enjoy it, it’ll be bloody October soon.