Plummetings

Yesterday, I heard the familiar thonk. It was one of the first horse chestnuts of the season, hitting the ground.

Ancient (and the odd recent) chestnut trees line our end of Cook Street, and over the next few weeks, the sidewalk will become somewhat hazardous, with green spiked chestnut shells and the round, smooth chestnuts rolling underfoot, and the near-misses from above.  (Not all of them miss.  Thonk.)

It's one of the signs that we've slipped past the equinox, along with the slanting sunlight that seems to vanish suddenly at dinnertime.  It's not sudden at all; we're past the 48th parallel here in Victoria, and twilights linger. It just seems abrupt after the long daylight hours of the vanished summer.

The tumbling chestnuts also remind me that we've been living at the condo for two years, during which we have never experienced a non-pandemic spring or summer, which includes Easter, most of the family birthdays (the exception being Demeter, whose birthday is in early February), Victoria Day, Canada Day, and Labour Day.

With this anniversary, we can look back on one Thanksgiving, one Hallowe'en, and one Christmas, untouched by plague protocols.

Time to prepare. And to watch my step.