There is most definitely a hint of autumn in the air, a certain crispness and energy that urges me to get out into the garden. It's an instinct really; a strong sense of needing to be out harvesting and tending and working the soil, preparing for a coming change of the seasons.
It's a strange and misplaced feeling. Strange, not just because it's mid-August and at least a month early for this sort of thing, but also because I don't have a garden. I find myself irresistably pulled to the shops, trolling the aisles for perennials, investigating the shiny tools hanging on the walls, checking out the selection of seeds. It's the same urge that causes me to gather seeds from plants that I come across during my wanders, even though I have nowhere to plant them. My fellow apartment dwellers point to my patio and tell me what a lovely garden I have; I see a bunch of pots. It does look nice, but pots on a patio are unsatisfying in a way that only a passionate gardener can understand.
A gardener without a garden. Kind of like an amputee who can feel and move his limb, a long long time after it's gone.
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