Cheers to Fall

It's my favourite time of year out there.  The crisp Fall air has arrived and I look fantastic in layers.  I enjoy Fall, it's noisy geese and colour displays and whistling winds have always made me feel more alive but it has taken me a few years to appreciate the subtlety of the season here on the west coast, where the colours change from deep green to dull green and the only reds and yellows are on the fungi.  

   

From my parent's deck in Ontario I could watch Fall happening.  Rich colours would gradually overtake hazy green slopes as though some gentle artist were lovingly yellowing poplars, beeches and birch; turning oaks to a soft brown.  Best of all were the maples.  Oranges so bright they seemed to vibrate.  Reds so fiercely deep they nearly shouted for joy.   

Fall in BC isn't as boisterous.  You have to want to see it happen, although in my limited experience, the locals don't seem to make the effort.  Or perhaps they do but in a typically understated and laid-back west coast manner.    And who could blame them when Fall slinks in wearing a slightly less green jacket and hangs about for months and months, like a dead-beat friend who won't vacate the sofa, bringing fogs that linger for days and rains that pound and pound and pound into your very soul....

You know, Ontario may have BC beat for colour but I sure do some of my best drinking here in the Fall.