Winter is Coming

The rain is falling against the window pane next to my computer. Rain driven by the North-Westerly wind. The television weather woman has told us about the cold front marching on Cape Town from the South Pole, bringing heavy rain and gale-force winds. She added that there was a good probability of snow on the mountains that ring our city. Winter is coming.

The leaves on the grape vines are changing colour. Golden yellow orange turning to brown. So too are the oak trees. But their leaves are falling to the ground. Great heaps of them. I recently walked through them, kicking my way forward with the exuberance of a young boy. Remembering leaves as a sign that winter is coming.

The tortoise in our garden has slowed up. We fetched him a year ago from a farm near Carnarvon, where he was called Bloukrans. The family have taken to calling him “Tortie-boy”. All summer he ate his way voraciously through lettuce, cabbage, cucumber, and the back lawn. He would make his journey down the long driveway to stand against the back gate with his head through the bars peering across the road while he absorbed the sun. But now he emerges reluctantly from his home in the dog kennel to lie in the sun for a while. After nibbling a bit at his breakfast, he returns to his kennel. Because winter is coming.

And Sheenah, our beloved Irish Setter, is lying on the kitchen floor. Her red coat is matted with sweat and her eyes are exhausted. She has suffered from epileptic seizures over the past 18 months. Which have curtailed her enthusiastic, madly hopeful barking at the squirrels in the garden. But the fits are increasing in severity - 10 seizures in the past 24 hours. And the medication is not helping. I fear that her winter is coming.

And I sit like a rock in the grass, waiting for winter to wash over me.