Autumn Leaves (one for my brother – he ain’t heavy)

This time of year brings to mind that song sung by Doris Day on her Day by Day album, released in 1956, music of my older brother who went to boarding school in a far-away city. He also introduced me to Rosemary Clooney’s (yeah, Georgie’s auntie!)  Come on-a my house and Irma La Douce, a fairly risqué musical about a mec (cool dude/pimp) – who fell in love with his poule (prostitute). This is the story: Valse milieu

Inadvertent education for a 6-year old (me); my brother was a sophisticated sixteen.

Talk about being led astray… this was supposed to be about the changes in nature that Autumn brings, but I wandered away down memory lane. Oh well, I enjoy doing that!

We don’t have a dramatic leaf colour display apart from a few exotic trees in public places that I try to avoid. However, trees like the paperbark gum and the Golden Penda, come into flower and lure birds in flocks; driven to fatten up before winter.

The ground below the trees is littered with flower wreckage. The raucous Rainbow Lorikeets are there and thus absent from our garden, so Bluebird, the ring-necked Indian Lovebird who has adopted us, comes to dine 5 or 6 times a day!

We are also visited by the Butcher Birds who gather in choirs and sing and whistle at each other in some sort of boundary identification ritual. Sometimes a few of them will fly straight up, high into the sky, then tumble and glide back down in graceful arcs. They too drop in for a crust quite often. Butcher Birdsong.

Magpies also start policing their boundaries, viciously chasing away juveniles. A pair swooped onto a young bird in our garden recently, pinning it to the ground and stabbing at it with their vicious pointed beaks.

Fortunately, Lulu took exception and ran over and barked them away. I watched them chase the bewildered bird into the distance at great speed. A hard way to start adult life away from home

I suspect my thoughts are about growing old gracefully and accepting nature’s inexorable cycle.

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

Author: manqindi

Post imperial wind drift. Swazi, British, Zimbabwe-Rhodesian, Irish, New Zealand citizen and resident, now in Queensland, Australia. 10th generation African of mainly European descent. Catholic upbringing, more free thinker now. BA and Law background. Altar boy, wages clerk, uncle, prefect, student, court clerk, prosecutor, magistrate, convoy escort, pensioner, HR Practitioner, husband, stepfather, father, bull terrier lover, telephone interviewer, Call Centre manager, HR manager, stepgrandfather, author View all posts by manqindi