Colours

Autumn is amazing with its leafy hues and low-level light, as the chlorophyll ebbs from the surround its green is replaced by a spectacular range of reds, oranges and browns. Describing the vista, painted by the hand of a planet spinning away from the Sun, is what the word sumptuous was created for.

Summer is simply a warmer version of spring, and even then it gets it wrong more often than not. Winter should have been sued for misrepresentation decades ago – part and parcel of being winter should be the provision of a thick blanket of snow to prevent people from having to do things they’d prefer not to.

Not autumn, you don’t mistake autumn for summer – certainly not since councils stopped sweeping up the leaves for children to kick. Admittedly, we don’t get here easily. Summer ends up like a late night town centre drunk, stumbling home via a kebab shop. Eventually life is all hot mugs of tea, a good vape and morning frost.

This time of year offers up the best of colours in the same way vape does. While caution has always been the watchword with regards strong colours in liquids, there are plenty of other visual delights.

The changing of the metal season is a gradual slide into darkness. While some relish the build up of a deep patina for others it signifies an impending rebirth. With a polishing cloth and the substance of choice, brass leaps from its winter-like slumber into full-blown summer glory. Radiant golds present only one problem as hands leave instant marks. How many vapers sit around after a good polish cupping their mod in tissue so they can vape and preserve the sheen?

It is why the all-black devices or stainless steel rigs have never appealed. Those who prefer their appearance are welcome to them. The reliable countenance pales when compared with the wonder of polished copper.

The only downside is when cleaning up copper pins. They undergo their transformation with some lemon juice in a little plastic beaker, from brown to pink with nothing more than gentle agitation. And then forgotten about until the hand that was reaching for a warming autumnal sloe gin picks up the wrong vessel by mistake.

Fresh copper loses its appeal somewhat when the taste of sloe and tonic is replaced by oxide and lemon. The love of colour is lost at this moment and not even the pretty leaves can help.