First Day of Fall - More Gifts for a Girl travelling Light

Tomorrow’s the first day of Fall in Canada. I saw it on a calendar the other day. We Irish are not so defined about our weather, autumn whisks in and out the door a few times before it decides whether or not it’s going to dance and rustle for us. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t like autumn/ fall. It’s such a glorious season. The warm summer is still lingering a little. The energy levels are up a bit. The excitement of Christmas is visible in the distance. The rain and the cold and the snow and the hail are in the same memory vault as PMS and childbirth. Remembered with mock horror, but best not to think about it 'till we have to.

It’s one of many differences between Ireland and Canada. Having a first day of Fall I mean.

Here in Nova Scotia, one of the most visible differences between my life in Dublin and my life in Halifax is the clothes people wear. Everyone goes to Frenchies, the second hand chain. Not everyone does the second hand thing at home. Frenchies is good; they rotate the clothes around the branches, so there’s always something to find in the shop. There are lots of really interesting one off second hand shops as well. Sadly, the availability of really funky, die-if-you-can’t-have-it new clothes is not so good. There’s the usual chainstores, but very few with that je ne sais quoi of Avoca, or Platform, or Rococco. Which is good, because I spent far too much money in them anyway. But I do miss being able to nip in there, look at what's REALLY trendy, then leg it up to A-Wear or Monsoon or Jigsaw and get the same same for half the price.

I love my clothes I do. And I really stand out here; even the colours I wear are different. People love my clothes and comment on them all the time. Stop me in the street and ask me where I’ve gotten stuff. (I always say Paris, just to annoy them). I’ve already worn a lot of the stuff that came over with Trish and Keith.

Just the other day, one of the women in work said 'surely you must be coming to the end of the selection!' And I am.

I walked down Spring Garden Rd. this evening, on my way home from work via the library. I stepped in to return Pat Barker's Border Crossing, a novel about a psychiatrist (quel surprise) who meets in adulthood a child murderer he had helped convict, which I really liked, and James Lee Burke's In the Moon of the Red Ponies (a Billy Bob Holland novel - I think he's finally getting into his stride with this series now) which I had read this week for FREE (yes, Ray I know they have libraries in Dublin, I just never joined one). I had sat outside the library as I always do for a few minutes, to catch the last of the sun. The Food Bank people were handing out some kind of curry to their clients. It smelled good. Then the unbelieveably irritating Acadian bloke who met me on the tofu stand and who takes pleasure in tormenting me every time he sees me (which is almost every day as he hangs out beside the library) came over to torment me so I got up and walked on.

I passed the posh clothes shop on Halifax’ main street and saw a black skirt in the window that reminded me of one Eileen bought last year. Not as nice as hers. But I thought of her anyway, and smiled to myself thinking how disappointed she’d be if she ever came here for a weekend’s shopping. It made me a little sad, thinking of her but when I got home I cheered up because there was a package waiting for me.

Boys and girls, to describe the rush I got when I saw it would be beyond me. I almost lost my balance for a moment. It was a yellow jiffy bag. I squished it a bit and then took it into my room and sat on the edge of my bed and squished it some more. It was soft. Was it from home? It said Canada at the bottom of the address so it must be. And then I saw the little An Post marker on the front. Oh joy. I didn’t recognise the bold capitals that spelled my name and address. I nearly turned it over to see a return address, then decided not to look at it until I had opened it. Then I ripped it wide open in one pull.

Out fell a clear plastic bag with a postcard of a sheep attached to it. It reminded me a little of the Murakami novel I read on the plane over to Canada – The Wild Sheep Chase – which begins with the main character studying a photograph of a field of sheep. It looked like a John Hinde special. Hello from Ireland it said. The sheep stood perky in the sunlight to one side of the picture. In the background was a landscape; it looked like one of the valleys in the Wicklow Mountains.

I opened the bag and shook the contents out onto the bed. Two wraparound cardigans. One emerald green. The other gold lame. It could only be…. Yup… Eileen. In case I missed the autumn essentials from A-Wear.

Does the friggin’ pope wear a silly hat?

I rarely buy that green, but it looks good on me. Maybe we should all get someone to buy our clothes for us sometimes. The gold is to die for. Good old A-Wear. They're so great. And thanks, girl! You made my day.

So I rang her to thank her and we talked about the summer being over. Everyone at home seems to have had a good one. I’m glad. Ireland deserved one.

So did I. Have a great summer I mean.

And now it’s autumn/ fall.

Round and round she goes. Like the stock in Frenchies, or the carousel of new releases they have at the entrance to the library. Or the Food Bank people in their little van. Or Queenie's wraparound cardigans.

I have Peter Carey’s My Life as a Fake to read this week and already it’s making me weep with envy at its absolutely perfect sentences that describe things perfectly and absolutely. Fixes them in my head so they can never be described otherwise. And the nerve of it – to write a novel about an editor writing a book about a poet who invented a poet, his oeuvre and life to deceive a friend. If I wasn’t such a fan I’d hate him.