So the day ends much the same way it begun. Late evening walk with Baka as the fading red glow of dusk is reflected off distant clouds. The air growing cooler combined with a distinct calm and silence, everyone having returned home, at supper, or watching TV behind closed windows and balcony doors. Growing signs of autumn. Soon the acorns will begin to fall and Baka will want to chase those that I kick along the sidewalk ahead of him.

The coming autumn makes me feel calmer and revives memories of walking home from school as a child with the smell of wood smoke coming from many homes, watching my father string lights in a tree by the front door, and the raking of leaves into huge piles that begged to be jumped into. Other more recent memories come to mind, such as evening walks with my previous dog Cotton in the weeks before Hallow’s Eve in a different town, on a different street, yet the same smells, same piles of leaves.

The south of France lacks that distinct change of seasons, like the especially bright multicoloured autumn displays that one sees in September and October as you drive into the hills of the Laurentiens north of Montreal or similarly into the country north of Toronto. Yet here there are small signs such as the cooler breezes, some rains, choppy seas, shorter days, and the fall of acorns from the few oak trees in the neighbourhood. Not as dramatic, but the feelings are the same.