Stormy

One moment we were living week to week in dry, lip-cracking, skin prickling heat. Then the rain came with the tropical low from Ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie. We live south of the Queensland border so the rain and wind which battered our little house only snapped a large tree branch in our backyard, the very same branch I had climbed with Love the week before the cyclone made landfall. Thankfully, the flooding was minimal in our town but others further north weren't so lucky. You only need to search for the town of Lismore in Google to see the devastation caused when the levee was breached in the dark of the night. I lived in Lismore for a few of my teen years and it flooded then, but nothing of the magnitude of the last flood. We've donated blankets and clothes, including some of Love's items, which she has long outgrown but parting with those items was difficult for me. The sadness eased when I thought about the families in need who would receive our package.

Now it seems the autumn cool has settled in and as we pull up our woollen socks, research the best places to source our firewood and set the crock pot on the kitchen bench, it's new home for the next few months, our daily rhythms have slowed to allow our bodies to adjust to the shorter days.

On weekends we continue to venture to the beach however, now we carry extra blankets under our arms, rather than surfboards and damp towels.

The wild wind lashes the coast, bending the trees and howling passed us in hurried gusts. Probably racing to the mountains to warn of impending coastal storms.

We've all suffered the inevitable sniffles, feverish foreheads and dull aches as we transition from the blistering hot summer to this new season.

I adore autumn.

Someone once told me that you are most fond of the season in which you were born and as I sit here, draped in a soft blanket, sipping my chai, I'm comforted knowing that this season - the foliage in rich hues and warm cuddles with my daughter - this season feels like home.

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