Remember when bees were all 'Argh! A Bee' and you used to run around, doing a new form of empty-hand martial art to make sure it didn't sting you in the face? Well, Bees hired a PR firm which put them on mugs and tea towels and basically turned them from something that could sting you into a bath of calamine lotion to our bestest friends in the whole wide world. If you see a Bee these days, we all salute respectfully and make sure we let them get about their business whilst carrying little bottles of honey as a kind of Bee First-Aid kit, should we see one in trouble on our travels.
I think Autumn must have hired the same PR firm. Think about the way Autumn is depicted by businesses trying to sell you things. Golden crisp leaves that crunch when you stand on them, pumpkin spice flavoured anything, squirrels darting about with a look on their face which suggests they're late for a very important appointment, fuzzy sweaters that make your teeth itch, hot soup, Ed Sheeran's hair is in fashion and its Halloween! What fun!
Fake news
This simply is not true. It's only just turned October and outside its wet, cold, muddy, grey, foggy, wet, cold, dirty, raining, cold and wet. It's only been two days and I've already got Seasonal Affective Disorder. I've had to put the heating on, get the big blankets out of the airing cupboard and the hot water bottles are on stand-by. And here in the UK, they've started calling it 'Fall'. It's Autumn, not fall, and it's not a wonderful crisp season filled with the joys of Cinnamon despite what the Cinnamon marketing board may tell you. At least Winter has the decency to understand what it is, a constantly dark freezing cold period of biological inactivity. Autumn can't even make its mind up if it wants to be sunny and cold or warm and wet or both alternating every five minutes.
However, this can't continue. The PR company who have put Bees and Autumn in most people's top three favourite things ever, are going to have their work cut out of them when Spiders send them an enquiry e-mail next year asking for an image make-over.
"Yoo-hoo, Can I live in your house please?"