My Favourite Season Doesn’t Exist

There is a moment in Poland, somewhere in the second half of August, that has always been my favourite part of the year.

It is still summer. The days can be hot, everything is still green, and nobody is reaching for an autumn coat yet. But something has already changed.

You can smell it in the air.

Mornings become cooler. Mist appears over fields and between trees. The light is different, especially in the late afternoon, and evenings arrive just a little earlier. None of this means that autumn is here. It isn’t. It is simply somewhere nearby.

I think of this short period as pre-autumn.

It is one of those seasons that doesn’t officially exist but is immediately recognisable when you live far enough north to experience it. Summer doesn’t disappear overnight. For a few weeks, it seems to coexist with the first signs of what comes next.

Barcelona doesn’t really have an equivalent. Dry leaves can already fall from trees in August, but they speak more of heat and lack of rain than of approaching autumn. Warm weather can continue well into October, until one day you simply realise that evenings require another layer.

Here, the transition takes its time.

Perhaps that is what I have always liked about late August. Nothing dramatic happens. Summer is still here. Autumn hasn’t arrived.

But you can already smell it coming.