Monday Memories

G'Day,
The Monday Memories prompt that I have been enjoying suggests we write a memory of past spring times. We are in early Autumn here in the southern hemisphere so I will turn the prompt around and write about Autumn instead.
Autumn is such a pretty time of year. It is the time when you are not quite sure if you ought to wear a jumper out, so you wear one anyway just in case it is cool. Then you take it off then put it back on a few hours later.
Autumn is the time of year when you watch the trees eagerly for the beauty of their leaves changing through green to yellow, orange and russet hues of brown. I watch them each day driving to work, luverlee.
Well we remember the leaves dropping and covering the ground. When I was younger I enjoyed raking them up into piles and collecting them. In those days we were allowed to burn them. In the gutters of suburbia you could see heaps of dwindling, smoldering leaves, smoking happily. I loved that job, in fact I loved any job that involved burning something, ha ha. I am still a fire bug but now my urge to burn things is largely sated by firing pottery.
Now the burning of Autumn leaves is forbidden, we are supposed to use them as mulch now days. Yeah I guess as a gardener I can see the great value of that, but those smoldering, smoking piles of leaves were such a nice thing when I was young. The smell a sign of cooler things to come. The promise of cool nights snuggled up under the blankets in front of the heater with television blaring ,or snuggling into a cold bed with feet and legs curled high until warmed by the trapped heat from your body and sleep.
When we were kids and raked up the leaves in autumn we would collapse into the heap and roll in the leaves, and throw them at each other. Then have to rake them up all over again. We would run through the park under the big deciduous trees and crunch them under our feet, kicking them high into the air. Great games. I taught my own kids to do the same they loved it too. The park in Wagga , my home town, has heaps of big deciduous trees planted just for that purpose, I am sure that is why they are there. Aren't you?
Just last year my neighbor, a lady in her 70's was walking down the street early in the morning and thinking that nobody was watching, walked along in the gutter beside the road and kicked the leaves up happily with the biggest smile on her face until she saw my son watching her. So cute, hahaha. She turned and when she saw him watching, waved to him and giggled. We had huge oak trees beside the house where we were renting then.
So if you would like to join in the prompt or read what others have written please have a look on my side bar and find the link listed as 'Memories On Monday" .
Enjoy! Enjoy what the lovely earth and her ever cycling seasons bring to you what ever season you are in, in your part of the world.
The pic above was taken last year in one of the many parks here in Canberra which fringe the lake in the center of town. This particular park I don't know by name but it runs along the nth eastern side of the lake near Duntroon, which is the royal army, navy, air force type academy .
Bye Love Linda.