One of the joys of late summer commuting – on my commute, at least – is the fabulous display of sunflowers in the allotments just north of Royston station. They’re glorious, so bright and cheerful and yellow.
The people of Royston don’t grow sunflowers for me. I don’t think I know anybody in Royston, so how should they even know I exist? All the same, they lift my spirits.
Other people’s lights do much the same thing for me. It’s a dank and gloomy time of year, and I’m not sure when I last saw the sun. I am feeling equally dank and gloomy. Perhaps other people are, too. Certainly other people have put up lights, and they are very cheering.
Across the street there are nets of red and blue and green lights in the windows of one house; starbursts in the trees of the garden of another; a pyramid of warm white lights in a third. As of an hour and a half ago, when my husband put them up, we have a shower of blue-white lights along our fence. Who’s going to see them? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.
Kathleen Jowitt 