Beautiful Autumn

Well, we woke up to a beautiful weekend. Clear blue skies, warmth, and the roads full of cars. Now, that’s always a good sign in Lebanon. So, I went out onto the balcony – the one giving the view over Beirut. I wanted to compare what I was seeing and my mood to that of Friday late afternoon. It was the brightness that struck me the most. When the sun is shining over Beirut in the autumn there is a kind of clarity and freshness that you don’t get during the summer. Perhaps that’s why I wait for the “between seasons” of autumn and spring – my favorites. Seems I wasn’t the only one enjoying the weather, one of my colleagues was out and about doing something similar.

I couldn’t do much but stay at home; but I’m not complaining about that, I enjoy having to stay at home! With reports to write and a son vomiting all night long (he's better now) the prospect of doing anything else but stay in was not even on the cards. I took my coffee outside and couldn’t help but enjoy the way the light played on the different colours of the leaves on some of my balcony pots (faithfully watered by Charles).

Inspired I went out the back balcony to check on the “workers.” Our neighbours have plots of land that they dig and plant in just behind out house. You’d be amazed by the noise of the digging that goes on out there on a Sunday morning! Today was no exception. They were all there, busy. Working, chatting, then stopping to have the inevitable coffee brought down by one of their wives.

Living 20 minutes out of Beirut does have its up side…