The latest edition of my favourite month so far has been more about soggy hedgerows than glinting stubble, much closer to autumn melancholy than lingering summer.

Perhaps that’s why serious matters like installing a new prime minister to climb craggy mountains in borrowed carpet slippers and waiting for a clutch of transfer window footballers to tell us what a million quid looks like have shoved more gentle reflections into second place.

There’s still scope, of course, for an evocative line from novelist and poet Alexander Theroux to lift the soul a mite: "September: it is the most beautiful of words, evoking orange flowers, swallows and regret." But it may prove too difficult to make up for lost time.

We waited in vain for that predictably tedious cross-country race to find new shades of grey for Downing Street wallpaper to come up with glints of positive thinking to cheer us on the road to winter. Getting rid of motorway speed limits and pushing for more fracking and North Sea drilling hardly smacked of getting to grips with a nation’s darkest fears or a global climate crisis.

A pledge to reinvigorate our grass roots got a warm welcome in Norfolk, where it has been known for several of them to be trampled and crushed by blatant over-development in precious green areas. A planning system heavily loaded in favour of greedy speculation needs replacing by carefully considered support for local character and quality.

In the meantime, I am rehearsing my home-made role as a medicated follower of fashion by considering vital plans to stay safe and cosy throughout chilly weather either side of the Great Season of Too Much, when I anticipate the usual bed socks and packet of Fishermen’s Friends.

As it starts in earnest to get late earlier, and them lazy ole winds begin going straight through you, I’m working hard to patent and produce a key element in a campaign to stave off worst effects of stark realities on many a horizon.

Skip’s Energy Cap should fit the bill perfectly This smart headgear with fur-lined ear flaps to blot out searching winds and grim news of eye-watering price hikes, and a large adjustable rubber peak designed to avoid any visual contact with scary headlines or panicky politicians and company bosses trying to justify them, should be available in many high street shops before Halloween.

I am pursuing a few other vested interests in fleecy underwear, polished buskins and a tasteful combination of heated bodices and electric girdles for upmarket lady customers heading for poshest boutiques in Gateley, Gasthorpe and Gissing.

My flair for embracing latest trends first took hold on dawn of the Swinging Sixties when I started work on a sunny September morning in Thetford as a cub press reporter in a brand new pair of purple winkle pickers. I felt the pinch after an hour and changed into ancient plimsoles.

That tumble from groovy heights may have inspired an old acquaintance to label me “about as upwardly mobile as an outing to Grimes Graves.” That is one of the oldest industrial sites in Europe, an extensive group of flint mines dating back to the late Neolithic period about 4,000 years ago. They had to make their own entertainment those days at Weeting in deepest Breckland, seven miles north-west of trendy Thetford.

There’s no need now for our burgeoning reputation as a fashionable quarter to be put in jeopardy by a prolonged cost-of-living crisis. “Nouveau Norfolk,” maintaining trust in binder-twine and wonky signposts pointing in roughly the right way if wind is in the east, is ready to blow away lingering cobwebs of suspicion and dust of insularity besetting the rustic scene since surprise visits by pillaging Vikings and dastardly Dane.

But it has to be a dual carriageway to The Promised Land. Those who flee from the capital and other places with spreading tentacles must travel the same way at about the same speed as their provincial hosts. A new kind of give-and-take can only enhance Norfolk’s stand as a blossoming member of the seriously smart set, not least in challenging times.

For a start, weekenders and second homers can support public transport, help organise jumble sales while recession bites and help clear away chairs and tables after austerity lunches, charity whist drives, psychic evenings and open meetings called to discuss too much rampant over-development and expansion of cultural ties with Corby and Essex.

They should be prepared to join the waiting list for an allotment, offer themselves up for gentle ridicule at the annual village pantomime and deliberately mispronounce local place names to confuse inquiring strangers

Like the well-spoken city motorist wearing helmet and goggles, believed to be a banker, who pulled up in Weybourne to ask the way to Blakeney ”There’s a signpost half a mile down the rud” replied a helpful local sporting a well-worn smock and brand new energy cap. The motorist, in teasing mood, said he couldn’t read.

“Well, that sign will suit yew a treat” replied he local. “There ent noffin’ onnit!”