October arrives....

We have had the most beautiful sunsets in recent days.......

The sky has been unbelievably beautiful.....

This tree is across the road, and last night, it was "on fire" in the setting sun. I love love love the softness of the evening sunlight - golden.

September is history now, and the very last day of the month was not one I want to remember. Or relive. Or anything.

I was coming back home from the supermarket when I turned onto a bridge nearby, and saw a young man standing on the wrong side of the railings. He looked straight at me, and my brain was trying to compute the fact that he was on the WRONG side of the railings. He was young - just a boy really. There were no cars about. Just me. What do I do? I slowed to a stop, and just then another car turned onto the bridge and the driver stopped next to the lad, so I zapped round the corner, and dialled 999. As I was speaking to the police, cars were slowing and turning, and I spoke to the other drivers, to keep the police dispatcher up to date with what was happening. Yes, he was still on the bridge. And the police arrived within about 10 minutes, so I could get off the phone. Thank heavens, I thought.

I turned the car around, and saw a man out for a run coming from the bridge, and asked if the young man was ok. "He stepped off the bridge" he said. "Then he is all right?" asked I. "No " he said "he stepped off onto the motorway below".

He was just a boy, really.

He looked at me with big dark eyes.

I don't know if he lived. I have no idea who he was. Maybe I taught him? What could have been so wrong that he thought this was his only option? He landed in front of a lorry. I don't know if it hit him. I can only imagine what the lorry driver is feeling.

It was a long way down to a very unforgiving road below.

The road was closed for a long time. Helicopter. Investigation. Broken lad.

I drove home, shaking. Could I have done anything else? Should I have spoken to him? Why? Did I do the right thing? Unanswerable questions I have no business pondering, because I know it is futile. But still the brain whirls round. Wondering.

What if.......

So I sat down on my comfortable couch, in my warm home, with my beautiful things all around me, a quilt on my lap to work on, coffee next to me, friends and family just a phone call away if I needed them, and I wept till I fell asleep.

Goodbye, September.......