And they wonder if it was a good idea anyway

From Peculiar melodies of existence by P.J. Kavanagh in The Spectator, 3 September, 1994. A beautiful description of England in the fall.

It seems to me that August is a season in itself; not summer, not autumn, withdrawn, pensive, waiting for something to happen, and dubious about what that will be. It has individual beauties. Round here (Gloucestershire) tumbrils of straw-bales brush the hawthorne hedges, so that minute pieces of straw are dislodged and the lanes grow gold margins, two or three inches on either side, very striking in contrast with the dulled green of the hedge. These, in August, remind me of girls who have begun the party excited, in a new dress, and now the dress is a little stained, a little of awry, and they wonder if it was a good idea anyway. Also, among the hawthorns, the masculine elders are going pale and bald.