Critters

I really missed Autumn last year. It might be my favourite season - I like the cold, and when I was younger and didn't do commuting I used to love the dark nights. They always seemed so much more exciting. (I was a bit Fifteen and rather hung up on Lost Boys too...) Oh, and the smell of bonfires - I still miss a lovely woodfire smoke - I love the way it clings to your hair and clothes. I LOVE the way the fallen leaves are just THERE for you to collect, paint, glue glitter on to, make collages out of, spray with white paint to make frost,or just blu-tac to the kitchen cupboards. And I love the chill in the air and wrapping up in warm clothes. So, the ongoing heat last year felt very odd, and I was desperate for chillier weather - not the minus 13 for weeks at a time the UK endured last Winter - just the long-sleeves-long-jeans weather that makes your cheeks rosey.
This year it doesn't hurt quite so much. Maybe I have acclimatised a bit - I am sitting typing this in long yoga trousers and a hoodie - and I had a good dose of chilly in the UK for almost all of June. I also know how cold it's going to get here at night, during the Winter months.
We spent most of the day by the pool again - it was HOT while the sun shone, and I have to say I enjoyed it. There were clouds by about three, but the mugginess of monsoon seems to be gone. (Cue the start of ridiculous load-shedding / power cuts / whatever you know them as.) But really, Nepal just doesn't 'do' Autumn. And I miss it. I miss my lovely Autumn season table - it just doesn't seem right setting up a UK inspired autumn season table here. But I might dig out the toadstools and make a new one - there is fungus here......
Anyway, we're going to be positive and look for interesting things.... And here they are:




Not related as far as I know.

The caterpillar was huge - adult finger sized! I tried to look it up online but didn't find anything - goodness knows what it'll turn into. I suspect we'll never know as Rudra-dai, our guard, made me chuck it over the fence so that it didn't eat half of the garden.
The moth was less spectacular, but Eve was entranced - it was bigger than it looks in the picture, and she was taken by its bat-like wings.

So, we don't get the crispy autumn mornings, the beautiful turning leaves, the scent of woodsmoke, but we do get Interesting Critters. I guess that'll do us for now.....