Autumn

I woke up to the smell of autumn the other day. We're back on the road now and had headed up from Queenstown to Twizel (pretty dull) and Lake Tekapo (beautiful but full of coach parties), finally getting some fabulous views of Aoraki (Mount Cook) covered in snow, and passing through more beautiful countryside.

The fields are sun-bleached and golden now. Irrigation pumps and combine harvesters are working everywhere. We even saw smoke rising from some of the fields which we presume was farmers burning the stubble. Something which I haven't seen since I was a kid. Not surprisingly then, when I woke up (in a former maternity hospital) on Sunday morning and took a deep breath out of the bedroom window, there was a definite smell of autumn in the air.

It's such a lovely smell. Smoke leftover form last nights bonfires. The earth cooling down. The faint, sweet smell of leaves beginning to fall and decay. Autumn is my favourite season you see, and since we haven't had an autumn in 18 months, you'll forgive me for revelling in it for a second.