Summer is well and truly over here, which makes me more than a little sad. Two weeks ago I was wearing shorts and sandals, and now I am wearing cords and a turtleneck. It happens just that quickly here. The duvet is back on the bed, the space heater is at the ready.

I suppose i hate it so because it always happens without warning. in new england, you have several weeks of gradually cooling temperatures to get you used to the idea that the tan is going to be fading, and the flip flops are going to be put away. The leaves start changing, and the air gets crisp in the mornings. Kids start going back to school, apples are back in season, and the sailboats come out of the water. By Halloween you need a warm jacket over your costume.

But here, nothing seems to change. There are no turning leaves, no cider donuts and pumpkins. Nothing gets brisk – it just gets wet and cold and extremely windy. You don’t smell neighbours burning their rake piles, or lighting their woodburning stoves. There’s no real Halloween to speak of, so no candy corn or jack o’ lanterns.

I miss walks on the beach and spooky decorated houses and yellow school buses. I miss hot spiced cider and little trick-or-treaters and fall foliage and foggy mornings. I miss pumpkin bread and picking apples and that funny-coloured maize you hang on your door and frost on the grass and the smell of smoke in the air. I miss bracing hikes and acorns crunching underfoot and l.l. bean sweaters.

I miss fall. not autumn. i miss good ol’ new england fall.

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