Roger Moroney: The time of the late sun and leaf is upon us

A_SUP0608515NAGraking: The leaves are beginning to leave home to meet the rake.

I am not about to put the old sun brollie away just yet.

Nor shall I put the hibernation cover over the old motor mower in the near future.

For while we have marched into autumn (groan) there is still a clement nature to this time of the year ... which is my favourite time of the year for it is not too cold and it is not too hot.

It is, as my late old dad used to say, "pretty well right".

And indeed, he was pretty well right.

I have begun to notice of late that it is darker in the mornings around the time my body clock always wakes me to say I should have got up an hour ago.

And the sun is beginning to make a visual nuisance of itself on the road journeys toward the east in the morning, for it is getting lower ... or is it getting lazier?

I also noticed last Wednesday morning that rain had finally come to town ... after an extraordinarily long dry spell, which had started giving everyone and everything the jitters.

Like the fire risk ... the critical shortage of water for folk in some rural spots ... and the death knell for a lot of eels whose watery homes had disappeared.

When the easterly-spurred rains began to fall, and settle in for a couple of days, it was like welcoming an old mate.

An old mate who brought good tidings in the form of much needed water.

It also brought home to me a couple of challenges.

Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.

For I had put the old raincoat away "somewhere" back in early December and had no idea where that "somewhere" was.

I just didn't figure I was ever going to need it again in a hurry so that was that.

So on Tuesday night as I watched the forecast declaring that steady showers were arriving, I had to put the thinking cap on to uncover where I had put the other thing I would have to put on the next morning.

I found it in the garage in an empty plastic basket.

But the biggest hint to me that we had indeed been through an exceptionally dry spell was taking a few extra moments in working out how to operate the windscreen wipers.

The timing for the dry-breaker was perfect for yes, it arrived in the first week of autumn.

Autumnal rains, but autumn has also been a good home for sunshine in past years, and being partial to the sight of the sun I am soothed by this.

For while the rain was most welcome and had everyone I came across late last week saying "oh we really need this" I was pleased to see it take a walk.

But hey, don't get me wrong, I do want that old meteorological mate to come back again ... but leave it until May yeah?

Autumn is a generally clement time, and time to say farewell to the pretty leaves which sparked into their pretty brief lives back in early spring.

I can hear the evergreens sniggering as their temporary tenants from the trunk next door leave the neighbourhood to them.

I also hear them snigger when the handle of the leaf rake, which had been dodgy for the past three leaf migrations, comes off as I take my first swipe at them on their new home, the lawn.

The raking time is the time you kind of wish the big dry would return for maybe just a fortnight so the things will lie there and dry out and you can just fire the mower over them.

Which is why the hibernation cover will not be placed on the thing just yet.

I will do that in the fifth season of the year ... winter.

For we are in the season within a season.

It is commonly called the 'Indian summer', although I call it season 4B ... the add-on of a brief and welcome accomplice to summer.

When summer lingers just a little longer and by noon has dried the morning dews which are starting to arrive.

And I am buoyed further by spotting that on June 4 last year, four days into the calendar winter, it was 19C across the Bay with northwest winds.

The add-on mini-season may just be growing larger.

Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.