An Ode to Autumn

[A side note from the Pillion Passionista:

I know it seems like I’ve lost 2 whole seasons, with no posts published since Winter 2014. Rest assured that we have been riding. And that I have been blogging. Just not as much as I’d hoped, on either account…!

There are a bunch of partially-written posts sitting in my Drafts folder and I’m planning to refocus on getting them done. Just maybe not in strict seasonal order…

So if you’d like to know whenever I finish one, you can signup to my Pillion Post by popping your email address in the form at right.]

It’s April and Autumn in Sydney is making herself felt. Despite my sadness at the loss of long Summer days, I love this in-between time. So here is my ode to Autumn’s beauty.

Dear Autumn,

You are my favourite time of year to be on the back of a bike.

I relish your lack of extremes:

• Your cool caress in the morning – without the need for bulky layers to protect me from Winter’s chill.
• The warmth of your lowering sun, that makes wearing black head-to-toe not seem like insanity as it does in Summer.
• I’m grateful for your blue skies, clear of the smoggy haze of hotter days.
• And that your sweet scent of woodsmoke in the air signals the cosiness of home fires burning – not the fear of raging bushfires.

I love your colours:

• The way you burnish trees in red and gold, warming my soul even as the cold descends.
• The bug-attracting flowers of Spring may be gone, and there’s not yet the heady scent of Winter wattle, but you still delight with touches of brilliant purple tibouchina and hedges strewn with camellia flowers.
• Oh, and did I mention your sunrises and sunsets? They’re the Best. Even if they do come too early in the day…

You’ve even inspired me to try a little Haiku:

Autumn brings colour

To riding, writing, cooking

And snuggling up . . .  ”