Standing at the station it’s an autumnal morning with a sharpness to the very fresh air and a heavy dew on the fields. In the distance is one of the high points of Northamptonshire, Borough Hill, which appears to have a slight frost on its slopes beneath the radio mast. Whilst the spring dawn chorus is long gone, there’s a collective calling of birds that I haven’t heard in quite a while. It began with a couple of robins ‘ticking’ in the bushes but they have now started to sing. They are accompanied by more distant wrens and a single blackbird startled into its alarm. Overhead there are the less tuneful calls of crows and jackdaws and the occasional wood pigeon flying by. This is the scene of an autumn morning with the hope of some sun, something we’ve been missing for days, after heavy rains caused flooding across the county. The songs of the birds seem to sign a hope that the sun may bring some brightness and rare warmth that has been lost since the equinox.