Saturday 24th August, 2013

The harvest is in: the fields around here already mostly 'en brosse'; apples ripening, blackberries more on their way out than in; roadside fruit-sellers tidying their stalls for another year. School's back with the coming week likely to see an overload on the autobahns as the young return while the elderly take off into what they hope will be quieter, less-crowded vacation areas.

Although late in coming, no complaints about a summer that ultimately turned out hot, if sometimes humid, mobile air-conditioning units a somewhat unexpected best-seller. Wimbledon was blessed with warmth to help sell the strawberries and welcome a first British men's champion since the fellow who made the polo-shirt an iconic fashion item, but there's no mistaking the first signs of autumn as the evenings cool and balconies become less welcoming without the comfort of wool and double layers.

The football season is underway - Arsenal only just redeeming themselves after a rotten start - and when cricket has increasingly to dodge showers and measure light, the evenings a good two hours shorter than they were not so many weeks ago, we know that two of the four seasons are tugging once again for supremacy.

Today was one of two distinct halves: the first bright, warm, even humid but still affording a leisurely Italian lunch on a shaded side terrace in the heart of Frankfurt; the second getting drenched as a rapidly blackening sky beat us to the first autobahn bridge under which the Morgan's flimsy cover could be erected, subsequently deteriorating into a cool, damp evening.

Guess there'll be a little more time for the hobby from now on. Just hope that all those temptations coming out of Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji et al come in traditional black as the new fashion for coloured gear is going to land me in hot water with the Lady Treasurer......there's only so much stuff I can claim to have "had for years...."