It is over a century since Anne of Green Gables celebrated gloriously changing colours of a Canadian landscape with her memorable exclamation: “I’m so pleased to live in a world where there are Octobers.”

Several leaf-turning years before that, George Eliot, who was really Mary Ann Evans adopting a male pen-name to ensure her works were taken seriously, waxed lyrical about nature’s grand finale on a slightly wider canvas: “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking successive autumns” .

She also wrote a novel called  MIddlemarch, perhaps to show  her liking for other seasons, but those soaring sentiments about this time of year place her firmly at the head of a long line of similarly creative spirits.

I can’t help wondering, however, what she and like-minded flights-of-fancy enthusiasts might make of a current  bird’s-eye view of this grand  old country in general and my native patch in particular as the party conference bandwagons, election speculation and a lingering cost-of-living crisis feed into a febrile climate of distrust, debunking and despair.

With that sort of climate highly unlikely to change – beyond getting far more uncomfortable – we may be forced to tinker with that stirring Shakespearean quote from the rum ole days and admit we could now face an autumn and winter of serious discontent.

I doubt if even the most conciliatory and open-minded  personalities  on GB News could muster enough positive vibes and reassuring bulletins to steer us away from the feeling October rations of reds, rusts and golds  will be overwhelmed by mounting piles of darkening doubts.

For someone often accused of clinging to the past, I don’t half worry about this area’s future.

Such deep anxiety has to be based on a simple but harsh truth. We’re being urged to gamble far too much of our precious heritage and character on inflated hopes of economic booty and a jobs bonanza.

Yes, there’s an occasional nod towards a green belt around Norwich just as untold desecration claims thousands more trees and valuable rural pockets.

There’s an odd visit from a government minister to reassure the peasants it will be worth it once the lunar landscape has been decked out for more traffic and other inevitable development trimmings.

There’s a widespread feeling it could get even worse.  

As usual, a deafening silence from most of our local MP’s, bound to turn a lingering suspicion into a solid belief that Westminster brooks no interference with its growth-suits-all masterplan despite handing out tasty little titbits like “genuine localism,” “fixing a broken housing market” and “have your say on what happens in your own backyard.”

Little bursts of defiance  in city. town and village are smothered by fresh torrents of planning applications to compliant district and county councils and an easily-induced perception that it’s a waste of time objecting.

Bulldozers will flatten the most bullish of justifiable opposition.

In short, breathtaking arrogance at the top and long-winded apathy at grass-roots level – now there’s an ironic use of a handy old phrase with a green tinge – continues to stoke up  an expansionist campaign  built only too freely on environmental destruction and “jam tomorrow” sermons.

That old argument about need to tackle a drastic shortage of “affordable housing” might carry a bit more weight if rampant developers put that issue on top of their agendas.

Perhaps, like the rest of us, they have no clear idea what that label stands for but drop in a few here and there to show they’re listening and learning about genuine local needs... before announcing they simply cannot afford such benevolence after all.

While Norwich and most of the area around it continue to feel a severe development pinch, we shouldn’t ignore worries piling up in other parts of the county.

For instance, there’s a severe warning of rush-hour queues of up to four or five miles on the outskirts of King’s Lynn as a result of housing expansion.

I’d like to think most of Long Stratton’s bottleneck blues could be blown away by a long-awaited bypass. However, as part of the deal also includes 1,800 more homes it’s a fair bet fresh tailbacks on the A140 are waiting in the fume-ridden wings.

For those of us who have watched large swathes of the Norfolk coast and several inland havens colonised by well-heeled incomers in fairly recent times, that recent Burnham Market vote against more second homes merely provoked sounds of galloping hooves, creaking doors and clipped tones of derision.

Good old “market forces” must remain under starter’s orders and  prevail over cosy neighbourhood plans, community cohesion ideas, home rule for Norfolk and all that soppy talk about country buses and railways, 

Right, I’m off for a bike ride down the A11 to see how that technology corridor between Norwich and Cambridge is coming on. We’ve been told it will bring thousands of well-paid jobs and construction of 20,00 new homes, all leading to a £588m boost to the economy.

I’ll take a guess at how  much extra traffic  is being generated and how many green acres will need to be sacrificed to the cause. It’s not easy peddling principles.