Seasonal Affective Disorder

I have found the change in season more disorientating than looking at a map or counting the miles and days has been. Out in the countryside the change is more obvious: the world has hung its winter wardrobe out to air and I don’t have a coat warm enough to keep out the chill. The clouds and rain of the last few weeks makes me feel as though I am living an English October in an African April.

And now autumn has stolen in past the edges of the city too and the leaves on the trees that line the streets are swan diving on to the pavement. Even on days when the sun tricks the bees into wakefulness the air has definitely lost the thickness of summer and the low sun makes me squint my eyes long and thin like my shadow.

I could lie for hours on my belly with the smell of grass in my nose, propped up until my elbows bruise my armpits, disturbed only by the odd fly that lands on my skin and the calls of the hadeda ibis. I wonder how many birds are migrating north towards the European sun.