Only 33 Sleeps

I must have some vestigial seasonal awareness left over from Canada - it feels like fall here, even in 35 degree heat and counting. Suddenly it feels like the days are getting shorter, I'm coming out from work and the shadows are longer and the air has just that hint of coolness, an idea of the season more than the season it self.

I'm in the mood for heavy brown wool sweaters and potato soup and cold noses. There is something so wonderful about warming up by a fire, by a friend, hot chocolate in hand. (Now, I'm not sure about you - but hot chocolate in my mind is always way better than it is in real life. I always end up making it too watery or without enough milk, or too weak and I never have marshmallows. I remember my mum making it in a pot on the stove when I was little - infinitely better than mine. Maybe it's a skill you acquire with motherhood.)

I want to be cold. Not air conditioning cold, not artificially cold - real, cool air, cool wind, cold. I want to wear mittens, and have a reason to knit a scarf again. I want to wear woolly socks and sensible warm shoes (which indicates this might be a passing insanity) , and get out the warm fall jackets and gloves.

Perhaps I'm just craving home - the seasons don't seem to change here, not a smidge, only from hot, to hotter, to wet, to humid. Not exactly a dazzling array of sensations, unless you count varying degrees of sunburn and heat exhaustion. Maybe it's the anticipation of going back to school - the countdown of "how many sleeps" until I'm in school again. (Gosh.. after three years.. has it really been so long? ) Maybe it's because my mom keeps referring to getting "back to school clothes". (I remember in Britain we had to bring an empty paper milk carton with an extra pair of pants stuffed inside in the event that we peed ourselves. Then again, I also remember having to do gym in your underwear if you forgot the appropriate gym clothing. That's the English for you - simultaneously over prepared and underdressed.)

So I suppose until I'm back in Canada (it seems like forever ago that that was "home".. when did India become "home"?) I'll just sit in my over air conditioned room with my toque and my backpack on and close my eyes and pretend that I smell woodsmoke and burning leaves and that wonderful smell of warm pumpkin and candles on Halloween. Oooh fall, here I come!