October

It is almost October, the year is mostly over bar the hectic rush that is Christmas. Hard to believe the millennium is already into its second decade. Soon we will observe the rituals that have survived virtually intact for centuries, in a way that is reassuring because the world changes these days at fever pitch.

Fall had always been my favourite season when staying in colder climates. The crisp bite in the air, sharp, smelling green. Birds flying south for winter, knowing that summer was over. And the leaves turning shades of red, bronze and gold, whole stretches of hedges looking as though someone had passed with cans of spray paint and coloured them in. If spring is the time of renewal and new things, fall is the time to say goodbye.

In the tropics, ten degrees north of the Equator the changes are less dramatic but no less noticeable. Here the evenings get cooler, the scorching heat of the day banished by colder air descending. In the early hours of the morning condensate drips off the eaves of roofs, a patch of wetness denoting the footprint of the house. It still rains, that heavy torrential downpour that leads to hot cocoa, evenings curled up under the blanket with a good book or these days, an e-Reader. The snowbirds are here, arriving in numbers daily. Inhabiting the neighbourhood fruit trees, their songs are different from the native birds. If you take the time to listen and the noise of the traffic quiet enough, their music accompanies morning coffee.

These cooler mornings are harder to get out of bed. The nights are longer, the days shorter, dawn takes its time to arrive and this is the time when sleeping with someone can be a languorous pleasure. The sticky, sweat filled August nights giving way to a time cool enough for cuddling in a tangle of pillows, sheets and bodies. Who could not like this?