A kind of contentment.

It's a good day. No office work, a week of frenetic and creative activity behind us (school musical production), a great weekend music festival behind that, a lunch date with a good friend, the final disappearance of a stubborn head cold and a few precious minutes to spend saying hello here.

Now that Winter has officially just begun, Autumn is in its dying stages, with the brilliant reds and yellows of the leaves having turned to brown before taking their lemming-like plunges to the ground. Huge drifts of damp but still crunchy foliage sit beside the roads waiting to be swept up. Sometimes a delighted child discovers a particularly large mound before it disappears into bin bags or the cavernous tanks of the street sweeper. Piles of leaves are made for kicking through, and anyone who thinks otherwise has forgotten what it is to be very young.

One cup of coffee down, the silence of the house is beautiful. Shower and breakfast can wait.