Indian Summer 
Whatever the truth about global warming, first hand experience tells me that the individual character of each of the year’s weather seasons is becoming less and less distinct.
Not only are the cycles of summer’s rise and winter’s drop in temperature being evened out but there are also ‘unseasonal’ bouts of weather simply where they shouldn’t be in the calendar- snows at Easter, frosts in May and ‘indian summers’ (hitherto by common consent confined to October) curling into November and December.
It’s as though Mother Earth, realising how detached we have become from the natural pattern of living with the rhythm and necessities of the seasons, has given up on them herself. English people under thirty consistently dress as though they are actually walking about in Los Angeles and birdlife adapts to city lighting throughout the night with the dawn chorus being triggered as street lamps come on.
So if your eye is caught by a painting whose composition includes snow capped hills, bare trees, and a couple with a significant lack of clothing, then you’ll know it’s an image from the early 21st century in England
I began my career as an architect specialising in concept design and graphic presentation during the ‘boom and bust’ years of the 1980’s and early 90’s.