Anyway, in many ways this is a story of death, decline, dementia and deterioration, we learn some grim facts such as more nappies are sold to the elderly in Japan than the very young. We also get random brushes with the Yakuza and the Dali Lama in between a lot of ping-pong, ill health and contemplation, all underlined with a Buddhist infused philosophy.

I think of our own family and see how the story is the same: my father-in-law, after seven years in war and twenty years working for the government, saves up enough to send his son off to America for graduate school. The result is that his son barely speaks to him again. Hiroko longs to get a foreign destiny for her daughter, and then the daughter’s gone to Valladolid, scarcely seen by us for eight years. Japan opens up to the world, and then worries that the world is diluting Japan. ‘ The best way to achieve this is through monochromatic colour combinations. You can pair slightly different shades of the same hue, such as a lighter green with a darker one. While hue contrast is not something Soft Autumn generally wear well, you can combine neighbouring hues as long as they have the same value. For example, you could pair a medium blue with a medium green. Another option is to mix a neutral with an accent of similar value, such as a medium brown with a similarly medium red.

The weather in Norway in September can still be enjoyable. This is when the summer transitions into the golden colors of early autumn. We often notice the nights begin to draw in from this point as after the autumn equinox, the nights are longer than the days, until this is reversed at the spring equinox. 6. A date for your diary - 24 September 2303 The walk takes you through many of South London’s beautiful green spaces (including Nunhead Cemetery and the Oxlea Woods), so is a great option when the colours start to change. Snuggle Up for a Film in a Fancy Cinema True Autumn’s primary aspect is warm. Thus, the colour palette sits at the warmest end of the hue scale. This means the colours contain yellow undertones but no blue undertones at all. Consequently, you will find very few shades of blue (which is the coolest colour of all). And you will only see warmer shades of blue that have a tint of yellow, like turquoise. Instead, there are more yellows, greens and warm browns, which are naturally yellow-based. In line with this season’s secondary aspect, the colours are medium-low in chroma. This means they are not saturated. However, the colours may overall appear more saturated because our eyes are more reactive to warm colours.

In this book, Pico Iyer finds himself undertaking such a walk, under the light-heavy shadows of autumn. So there’s 10 ideas and hundreds of suggestions for outdoor things to do in England this autumn. What takes your fancy?

In Greek mythology, autumn began when Persephone was abducted by Hades to be the Queen of the Underworld. In distress Persephone's mother, Demeter (the goddess of the harvest), caused all the crops on Earth to die until her daughter was allowed to return, marking spring. 8. Autumn and Fall My girls start talking about Halloween in about May – nearly as early as Christmas! This, and October half term, is the highlight of their autumn. And, a bit later this autumn, you’ll find Christmas light trails opening all over the UK. 7. Let loose at an adventure playground Compared to the third Autumn season Dark Autumn, the colours share the same neutral-warm hue but are more muted and considerably lighter.

I sometimes wonder if we were to be consistently aware of the impermanence of things that surround us, would that have a bearing on our interactions with others. In particular, with our loved ones. Would we be more perceptive and considerate than we usually are while holding their presence and taking their support for granted. London has no shortage of green spaces… perhaps russet spaces would be a better term as the season turns the green leaves to almost every imaginable colour on the red, orange and yellow spectrum. Aside from this not being the book I was looking for, this starts off really slow and I was battling to find a way into it past rambling octogenarian ping-pong players and tables as sentient beings nonsense. This took a while to get to its points and there is a lot of dull and mind numbingly uneventful stuff in the road. During winter there is not enough light for photosynthesis to occur, so as the days shorten throughout autumn, the trees begin to close down their food production systems and reduce the amount of chlorophyll in their leaves. 3. The chemistry of colour As mentioned before, Soft Summer has a high content of grey pigments, which tones down the colours of their natural appearance. Soft Autumn colours contain more walnut, beige, and gold pigments, and therefore the eyes cannot appear grey.With so many people going gaga over the colourful blooms in the summer and the pretty lights in the winter – it can be easy to forget that Kew Gardens is actually one of the best autumn spots in London. Autumn “is not a sequel to the book I wrote on Japan twenty-eight years ago, except insofar as autumn is a sequel—a prequel—to spring, the companion piece that rounds the picture out.” PI London’s autumnal weather is unpredictable. It can be cold in the morning and sunny in the afternoon, and (much like the rest of the year) it can rain at a moment’s notice. We suggest you dig out your waterproofs if you’re going out and about. In the process, the author discusses more on the aspects of his life and people around him, the death of his father in law and his wife. There’s not much plot to speak of here. There is one quote that I love so much. “A little like Japan itself in its post-war decades, we'd stumbled out of the lives we planned, with nothing definite to step into." To me this quote is quite relatable and it can be applied to everyone who have gone through life changing event or to everyone who are not knowing where to go next. Visiting a beach is one of our go to outdoor things to do in England. My girls love a beach day and want to get in the water whatever the temperature.