November

Brisbane is at its most beautiful in October, when the jacarandas are at full bloom and the roses are so beautiful that I could cry; but November is not far behind as the flowers fall and the whirling purple snow carpets the city. It's not the colour that sets November apart however, it is the perfume.

November has its own unique scent; the end of Spring, the creeping heat, the honey of the late jacaranda blooms and the sickly syrup of star jasmine. The asphalt steams with late afternoon storms and the Earth smells cool and sweet. The pungent sulfur and citronella as we light the candles on the table every night for dinner and the fog of the green mozzie coils. It's the perfume that heralds that Summer is coming, that the sultry, sensual months are waiting.

The sun wakes me every morning now, the golden light insistent against my eyelids well before 6am. And it's so warm, that even if I wanted to hide my eyes from the tickling call to get up and play, the sheen of early morning heat would have me up regardless.

I love the way that my citrus trees are covered in ripening orbs and my tomato stems are straining under the weight of boughs of bursting fruit. The passionfruit curling around the fence and insinuating themselves through the neighbouring hedge.

I love the way that you can feel the end of the school year approaching and the intensity that rolls out of the university as the libraries stay open all night with the conscientious and the terrified. Children tireder and looking forward to holidays and smelling of chlorine and sunshine. Christmas muzak blaring in shopping centres and holly and ivy creeping over street signs.

I miss studying and I wish I was Christmas shopping instead of working, but I still love this time of year. I love the feeling that there is a new year just around the corner, and that we're sending out the new one in a honey sweet series of end of year parties and swings in the hammock under violet skies.