Thursday 13 September 2012

End of Estivation

Two days ago it was 30°C, but today, when I cycled to work, the tarmac on Bennoplatz was littered with the floury remains of chestnuts crushed by car tyres and the breeze nipped my knuckles and the tips of my ears. I saw a girl wearing a knitted hat, a parka and desert boots and the cawing of the crows had quite a different ring to it under a sky that now wasn't blue but approximately the colour of brushed aluminium.
Perhaps, I thought to myself, as I navigated through the oncoming traffic in Mariannengasse, I will have to buy gloves soon.

People are posting comments on social media sites, like: "Good weather, at last", no doubt in the hope to receive incredulous replies regarding their edgy and unconventional taste in weather.

Autumn seems to have hit the land, hard.

I seem to be okay with it, and the prospect that the library where I spend most of my time will no longer be sweltering and stuffy; and the fact that my bed is white and pink and infinitely comfy when the sky is grey and the rain is hitting the window panes; and the way hot black strong tea is always ready to be your instant comfort when you need it (a thing that only really works when there is actual, physical cold to be thawed); oh yes, and that there is an endless supply of free squash and pumpkins this year, waiting to be turned into delicious autumny soup. Simple comforts. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
It is also a fact that it is much easier to turn oneself into a studious hermit, and to huddle, entrenched, behind stacks of books when the outside world seems less inviting a place than one's own study.

And maybe occasionally, on Sundays, the grey will yield to something like this ...
That would indeed be quite ideal.

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