An Instagrammed September

Yes, yes, I am a little late with this. I cannot use the excuse that September has one day fewer than most other months as today is the 3rd October so I am, er, actually, three days late. And of course how could I forget that there were only thirty days in September when  I have what is probably the world’s best know mnemonic to remind me. You all know the rhyme:

“Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November;

February has twenty-eight alone

All the rest have thirty-one

Except in Leap Year, that’s the time

When February’s days are twenty-nine”

I have to fess up and say that mnemonic is a word I learnt not that long ago. The oxforddictonary.com defines it as: ‘A system such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations which assists in remembering something.’ So now I know what it means and how to spell it but I better check out its pronunciation before I start peppering my conversation with it.

This September was the month in which I wondered would it be possible for the Irish weather to have a sorely needed factory reset. Having forgotten for most of June, July and August that it was actually summer it attempted to make amends in September with a class of an Indian summer before, in the final week, skipping autumn and fast forwarding into scarf-and umbrella-appropriate winter weather and finally in the last few days of the month performing a swift meteorological u-turn and giving us some passably warm and sun-filled days.

Looking back on my Instagram feed for September I remember: a trip to a sun-drenched London which gave me a chance to have a quick whirl around my favourite department store, Liberty, stopping as I went in to admire the Wild at Heart flowers; being glad I bought a cheering yellow orchid for my kitchen; gazing at majestic horse grazing in Powerscourt; lunch at Bibi’s a favourite café; almost deserted beaches on chilly days; and the inky shroud of darkness tumbling down early on misty rainy days.

And so time rolls on, like a ceaselessly chugging train, towards year’s end and our unforeknownable futures. Abraham Lincoln was right methinks when he said: ‘The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.’

Happy October!