Welcome to Literary Friction. I'm Octavia Bright, coming to you from the late dregs of London summer as we slide properly into autumn.

Hi Carrie, how you doing? Hi Octavia. I'm morning the summer a little bit,

but I'm just back from a month in the US where it was properly summer. Not to say that it

wasn't properly summer here, but, you know, it was hot. Listen, watch your mouth, actually.

No, I mean, it was quite a crap summer here, so I think it's fair.

And it was hot and it was sunny, and I left on the most brilliant day and returned here and the days are drawing in.

And the wind is shaking my bones.

So I'm feeling a little melancholy.

But yeah, trying to celebrate apples and pears.

Are pears autumn fruits?

Yeah.

Well, there are pairs really going for it on the tree in my neighbor's garden. So that, I mean, maybe that's a rogue pear tree, but I could

imagine. Yeah, I had an apple off a tree in my garden the other day, which I don't think has

happened before. It was very exciting. And it was good. It wasn't like mealy. It was like

crunchy. That sounds very good. How are you?

Similarly, finding it a bit shocking that summer has passed, but I am really, really determined to find pleasure in autumn this year. Also, I think I'm slightly less miserable because

I'm, fingers crossed, all being well, about to go away on

Saturday to Sicily. Yeah. So if, if nobody gets COVID in between now and then, one of my

partner's friends is getting married. So we're going to a wedding and we're going to be away.

And I just, after everything that happened this last kind of year and a bit,

I just, I really can't wait to be somewhere else. So yeah, I think that's helping me feel less

melancholy about autumn because I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, when I get back, I can feel all those feelings.

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