Caught in the doldrums of August we may have regretted the departing summer, having sighed over the vanished strawberries and all that they signified. Now, however, we look forward almost eagerly to winter’s approach. We forget the fogs, the slush, the sore throats and the price of coal, we think only of long evenings by lamplight, of the books which we are really going to read this time, of the bright shop windows and the keen edge of the early frosts.

Denis Mackail, Greenery Street