People sometimes ask me why I chose to live on the Isle of Man. When I tell them that the weather was part of the reason, they usually laugh, and I understand why. The weather here is not always kind. The winters can be long, cold and wet, and there are certainly days when I wonder whether I made a sensible choice. But that is not really what I mean when I say I like the weather here. What I actually like is having seasons.
Six years in the south of France, followed by another two in Spain, and I loved every bit of it, the light, the warmth, the long evenings, the outdoor life. But after a while, something was missing. It was the change itself.
Here, you notice it happening without having to look for it. A few months ago I could walk my dogs early in daylight. Now it takes a head torch and a walk under the stars. The first time the jumper came back out, it actually felt good to wear it. There is something rather nice about coming home cold and light the fire place. And then, inevitably, after a few months of that, spring starts to feel overdue, the T shirt, the longer mornings, the lighter evenings, the warmth of the sun.
It reminds me a little of sailing. When there is hardly any wind, I want more. When there is too much, I want less. Wind is never something I control, only something I read and respond to, trimming, adjusting, changing course, and maybe that restlessness is exactly why I am never quite satisfied with it. The seasons ask nothing like that of me. There is no adjusting, no negotiating, nothing to read and react to. They simply arrive, in their own time, and all there is to do is let them.
What stands out most about spring and autumn is that something is actually happening. Autumn is not just summer turning colder, it is nature changing in front of you. The leaves turn and fall, the trees let go of what they no longer need, the storms arrive, the days shorten, and the landscape begins to prepare for a pause. Then spring does the opposite. The first buds appear, the birds start singing again, the mornings lighten, and things that seemed to have stopped suddenly start moving again. Nothing is forced. Nature simply knows when it is time to slow down, and when it is time to start again. There is something beautiful in that.
Spring and autumn have always been the favourites, maybe for exactly that reason. Summer just is. Winter just is. But spring is becoming, and autumn is letting go, and those are things worth recognising in a life, not only in a season.
Living in France and Spain meant plenty of beautiful days, but the transitions were harder to see. Here they show up everywhere, not only outdoors. A summer weekend dinner tends to be something light, a salad, maybe a cold beer or a tonic in the garden while the evening light is still holding. By the time autumn settles in, that same dinner has become something heavier, a casserole instead of a salad, a glass of red wine by the fireplace instead of the beer, without ever really deciding it. The seasons make you pay attention, whether you mean to or not.
And perhaps that is what was really meant by choosing the Isle of Man for the weather. Not for better weather. For weather that changes. I like the fact that the landscape gets a chance to pause. Something coming to an end no longer feels like a failure. And something beginning again, without needing to know exactly what it will become, feels like its own kind of promise.
Nothing stays the same, and it does not need to.
