Autumn
31/10/05 14:34
It's cooler than it was
in summer, though temperatures are still climbing
well over twenty.
There were beautiful Paris days over the weekend, and we threw open the French doors. The sky is deep blue until the showers come along. The air feels lazy and warm and the grand stone buildings seem to glow.
Daylight saving has ended. The parks are emptying a little.
In the late afternoon there is a layer of golden leaves around the park lawns and pavements, looking as if they've been placed there like dinner plates at tea time.
In the mornings, men arrive in crisp lime uniforms with machines to blow the autumn into neat piles, which they scrape into bags and cart away before children arrive.
You can't have messy leaves lying about on the ground and rotting like so much nature. What are we, animals? So the kids step carefully around the ubiquitous mounds of dogshit on the way to the park and then scamper about the manicured playground free from the threat of vegetation.
When a ball, which is not really allowed at the park, rolls onto grass, Carlo stops chasing it and stares, wondering how to retrieve it. He has learned that grass is not for walking on.
There were beautiful Paris days over the weekend, and we threw open the French doors. The sky is deep blue until the showers come along. The air feels lazy and warm and the grand stone buildings seem to glow.
Daylight saving has ended. The parks are emptying a little.
In the late afternoon there is a layer of golden leaves around the park lawns and pavements, looking as if they've been placed there like dinner plates at tea time.
In the mornings, men arrive in crisp lime uniforms with machines to blow the autumn into neat piles, which they scrape into bags and cart away before children arrive.
You can't have messy leaves lying about on the ground and rotting like so much nature. What are we, animals? So the kids step carefully around the ubiquitous mounds of dogshit on the way to the park and then scamper about the manicured playground free from the threat of vegetation.
When a ball, which is not really allowed at the park, rolls onto grass, Carlo stops chasing it and stares, wondering how to retrieve it. He has learned that grass is not for walking on.
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