I’ve been back just over a week now, and fully adjusted. That means I’ve gone from this:
to this:
From places that are so dry that the ground is hard and baked:
to a place where every crack and cranny seems green-tinged with mould and moisture. The grass is sodden, the roads seem never to lose their wetness, and the trees drip over my head as I walk to work. Winter in Auckland.
I’m trying to keep up the exercise, although it is SO EASY to huddle indoors and stay dry. But I’ve just come back from a cycle between showers feeling refreshed and energised again.
It’s amazing that my body has coped with the utter difference in the seasons, and the opposite timeframe, so that I am once again sleeping when I was walking the dry streets of Provence only recently. And I’ve started a new job, which means working at one of these:
At least my new desk allows me to stand now and then. And if I shut my eyes I can still smell the dry air and imagine myself beside the pool in St Remy, Provence.
I can even here the cicadas – can you?
Hen & Ink 
I CAN hear cicadas. Day and night. Wretched tinnitus. So you have brought your feet back down to sodden earth. These fallow months of long nights and short cool damp gray days require a discipline of mind to overcome, don’t they. It is too easy to slump into a despondency and allow the chill to seep into our spirits. Fly to our aid, glad spirits! (Funny the only spirits that answered that call were caffeine, alcohol and sugar. Ah well.)
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Oh, I know that happy trio of spirits well. Especially the last. I’m not despondent yet – when I feel the urge to slump I whip out and get on my wheels. Nice to see the regular updates on Cafe Cruisers. I almost feel I’ve gone too. I hope the fact that many Jeffries seem to be on these rides makes you feel my presence there as well.
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