Melbourne cliche alert: I love this time of year. Autumn, when the mornings turn crisp and the nights warrant a really comfy doona pulled up around the ears. When the mornings are pale blue, streaked with white, and the dark green of the trees around the Brunswick Street Oval take on a reddish tone.
In the mornings, the Yarra and even the Merri Creek steam gently. Falling leaves start to pile up in the gardens along the streets near my house and the air has a rich, faint tone of organic decomposition. I can imagine the flowering bulbs settling in under the layer of natural compost, dreaming of spring already. there's something about the closing of the summer season that lets the city look inwards again, to its warm fireplaces and sunny corners of the room; and something about the fierce brevity of the midday warmth that makes it all the more precious. we let go of the summer; we know when enough is enough, and we lean into the rising, biting wind with a kind of determined relish; it's familiar and exhilarating and exactly what we expect from our place this time of year.