Indian Summer

It's the last day of September and I stand outside on the grass in the semi dark at 6:30 am in my slippers and pyjamas admiring the lightening sky and revelling in the balminess of this embryonic morning.
No one notices me as they cycle or jog past in the Meadows on their early morning exercise routine. I am invisible in the shadows.

It's so enticing that I get dressed and venture further afield with my camera to capture the first rays of sunlight glancing through the trees and sending long shadows over the grass.

Later, I tarry over a coffee outside in the nearby cafe with a friend of many years standing, and we exchange news and laughter.
The sun shines, the summers's persistent cold wind has disappeared, and for a moment I am transported back a week to the delights of al fresco dining in Budapest.
But this is Edinburgh, and how we would like it to be more often.

People come and go with their lattés and cappuccinos, while we, two older ladies, reminisce about events which happened when we were neighbours thirty years ago.
Reluctantly we leave, and I show her round the Dower House. She is envious of our new environment, and indeed it's looking its best with its surrounding sunny greenness, the students settling on the grass over the wall to lap up this late Indian summer of ours.

My children tell me I'm lucky, and I am, very lucky. I just hope the luck holds.