Technically summer's already gone; down here 1 March marks the beginning of autumn.

I saw this dropped frangipani flower on the path as I came in this evening. The late, low afternoon sun was lighting up the petals which retained most of their original structure, but had of course already begun to decay.

I've passed that tree day in and day out now for more years than I'd care to remember, but this is pretty certainly the last year that I'll do so. At the equivalent time next year I'll probably still be on the train commuting at this time of the day, and it'll be to a place a long way from the frangipani tree which has formed part of my backdrop, only occasionally noticed even then mostly because of my PAD, for so long.

Of course maybe that's me recollecting a rather incisive piece of writing that I read recently regarding the death of Davy Jones last week:

"When I cried for him I was crying for my childhood, which is now so long ago. I was crying for my mother, who died last year. People I know keep disappearing and taking my past with them. If Davy Jones is dead, we're all getting old."

Getting old is not something that I'm worried about. People disappearing is something that I've long since recognised as an unavoidable if highly unpleasant reality, though one which is nice to at least forestall. But sometimes seeing something as simple as a fallen flower causes me to reflect on where I was when I first saw that tree, the things that have happened since then, and think "Gods that's gone fast..."

It reinforces the need to pack some value into as many moments as possible, because the turn of seasons never stops.

Last Year