Mountain shoulders and fall leaves

One of the things I'm missing here in Brussels is a sense of the fall season. Yes, the stores are carrying little orange pumpkin candles and strange ceramic mushroom creatures, as well as displays prominently featuring brown, orange, yellow and red. Yet there's none of that crunchy-leaf smell, the glow of fiery trees, the crispness of sudden cool. Just a few gray, cold, rainy days here and there, but it's been doing that since August, so doesn't quite qualify in my book.

The sensation is exacerbated by our apartment situation. The large front window faces the street (i.e. anyone passing by could look straight into the living room), so I can never really open the curtains and let in the sun during the day while I'm here working. We've got to find a new window-treatment system. Yet I suspect that even after opening it up a bit the sun doesn't reach here much, as we're on the ground floor and below. Downstairs, where we have humidity problems that bother M's allergies and molest our food, it's always dark. These are all reasons why we're going to move out of this place. We're hoping to get an apartment that we saw a few weeks ago with a lovely little yard in the back and a dining room with huge windows facing the garden that would let in plenty of light without having to worry about passers-by. The only trick is that the current renters don't quite know when they'll be returning to England, so, it's sort of a wait-and-see situation right now.

I'm flying to the US to visit family and friends in a couple of weeks, and aside from seeing them (and especially my 1-year-old nephew!), I'm looking forward to New England fall. Unfortunately, the leaves in Vermont will be past their peak by then, but I hope to at least catch the tail end of something bright. In any case, Vermont is always beautiful. No matter what, even in mud season. Driving up Interstate 89 on my way home from Boston, I always feel welcomed back by the mountains, embraced by their weather-worn shoulders.