Waking up to fog at the weekend heralded the beginning of my favourite time of the year, writes blogger Dan Wainwright.

I’ll be honest. I hate the summer. Well, maybe hate’s a strong word, I certainly don’t count summer as my favourite season.

Don’t get me wrong – I love going on holiday, preferably abroad, to enjoy the warm weather. But the rest of the time I find myself looking faintly ridiculous in shorts and t-shirts, scrawny in places, podgy in others.

I believe there really is a Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, a condition suffered by Stourbridge’s famous ex-Coronation Street star Johnny Briggs. It’s where the rotten weather makes a person depressed, clinically in extreme cases.

But for me autumn is a time to comfortably don the sweaters and jackets that hide my shame at spending almost 27 years dodging any form of exercise.

Cooler temperatures allow me to delude myself that I will use the time that my puny frame is not displayed to get down the gym, making sure it’s up to scratch next time the beach wear has to come out of the bottom drawer.

This week the children return to school and their parents will have to accept that it will be almost 12 months before most of them will get another long holiday.

But consider this – it’s now almost 10 months before you’ll have to put up with the little so-and-sos for six whole weeks again.

It’s also almost the end of rotten summer TV schedules. We can nearly have rid of the likes of Big Brother and look forward to some hopefully decent entertainment as the nights draw in.

Non-smokers can also look forward to sitting pretty inside pubs while the nicotine faithful are forced to huddle outside in the elements after a few months of lording it over us in the beer gardens.

The football season’s now well underway but I’d be lying if I said that affected me even remotely.

And I haven’t even started about the various delightful autumnal colours nature has to offer. But that’s because I’ll be turning up the collar of my coat, rubbing my hands together and complaining about the weather by the end of next week.