That Certain Feeling

It’s been a few days since I’ve reported from the Cosy Apartment. The fact is that there is not much to report, which is rather a relief. Renn sneezes his usual amount but eats decently and purrs readily; Neville still dirties his bum from time to time, but not always; Imogen is active half the day, a lump the other half, but affectionate throughout.

Brazil continues his improvements, albeit slowly. He doesn’t hide as much – though he is still invisible for the majority of the day. But he shows himself more, doesn’t run from me quite as much, and even pokes his head out of the library at meal-times, as if to make sure he will be receiving his share.

The real change is in the weather. Every year, it seems, there comes a point in the late summer, in August and not even September, when there arrives an autumnal sense in the air. There will be hot days yet but even high temperatures feel a little different than the same temperatures a month before. It’s like when the current from a forced-air furnace is still blowing up through the vents, but the heat is diminishing, in preparation to shutting off. Warm breezes are less convincing, as if their minds are elsewhere. The grass is still a deep green and the leaves haven’t even turned colour, never mind fallen. Yet there is a change.

I don’t mind this. The torrid temperatures of summer don’t please me, though the bleakness of winter doesn’t treat me any better. Early autumn, with its crisp night air and daytime skies whose blue is just a little duller than a few weeks priorly, provides just the right weather for me. The period doesn’t last long; in fact, its harbingers seem to endure longer than the season itself.

Gradually, we are preparing ourselves here. Windows are open less wide and blankets pulled up at night. And slowly, the Cosy Apartment feels a little cosier.