All my memories of autumn in Germany are that everything is just grey and depressing. Of course nature did its best to convince me during the past weeks that my memories were dead on as we had pretty much everyday only rain, the sky was grey in grey and the leaves were covering the streets making it deadly to go out (okay a bit of exaggeration here).
However today I looked out and saw a blue sky and sunshine. At first I thought I am still dreaming but no, real nice weather! Furthermore the trees were not just those depressing things slowly losing their leaves and preparing for winter but were shining in golden colours. To make the day even better we had in this town a Sunday Shopping day. What is this? Few times a year each city is “allowed” to have their shops open on Sundays. Here in Germany Sunday is a resting day or so I’ve been told so all shops are closed, turning the cities into ghost towns. Going with my family to the city center I suddenly remembered that there were actually nice autumn days in my youth, not only these depressing grey days/ weeks/ months. Back in the day going around the nearby park and searching in the ocean of golden and red leaves for some chestnuts in order to take them home, polish them and make out of them some chestnut toys. Right now I am wondering if I still have some of those toys in some box in the cellar, probably shriveled up like raisins and unrecognizable.
Thinking back on my younger days I remembered more than just those chestnut treasure hunts in the forest like lantern processions where each little kid is holding a little stick with a colourful lantern hanging from the top. Those were the exciting days when the lantern processions went even through the dark forest here and imagination would go wild. So how come I did not remember any of these things anymore until this nice sunny autumn day? How come I only remembered grey depressing days and forgot all about the nice times, I guess I have a pretty weird selective memory!
Now I made with my wife already some plans for the next nice autumn day to take our Nathan to the Zoo and the local park to search for some chestnuts with him. I hope there will be tons of golden leaves on the ground so he can go crazy and jump into them. Also I checked about lantern processions here in this town however online I find only some articles about past processions so I will be forced to become a more social person and ask at some sport clubs and other institutions about information. I hope Nathan will be able to remember more of the good times, not like his stupid dad!
You might be wondering what happened to stories about my crazy family. To be honest I don’t know myself, somehow this day was so special to me as it gave me back some good memories which I had already forgotten over the years. But I promise, next time will be again something very weird as long as nothing special happens to me again.
Did you had any special thing happening which made you remember nice things from your youth?
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Beautiful colours! I love autumn 🙂
Indeed autumn got some awesome colors. I loved the autumn up in the north, especially in Lapland where the tundra got amazing colors!
It looks great =) i love autumn colours generally, and we even get a whiff of it here in Greenland. Limited number of leaves turning, but the fells turn orange and red =)
Autumn is something special when you can see how nature changes! I loved it in Finland when the tundra changed all in the golden, brown and red colors 🙂
Such a lovely post with lovely photos. 🙂
Thank you so much. The whole post came on a whim. No preparation at all, just writing all down in twenty minutes. The pictures I took while going to the city, I felt like it would be worth taking my camera and I wasn’t disappointed
Autumn is the best! I even miss the cold and gloomy and dreary days…
Yeah, Nathan totally needs a life pile to jump into!
I can do perfectly well without the cold and gloomy and dreary days but these kind of nice sunny autumn days with crisp air are just wonderful. I think by next week we will reach the peak time of leaf piles 🙂
Four seasons can be a great sight… I must admit sometimes I miss them, reminds me of jumping in piles of leaves in my youth… 🙂
Yeah I guess you don’t have so much of 4 seasons there 🙂
Though I could do with a more warm climate I still love it when the seasons are changing. I used to love winter time until I lived in Finland…there it was just a hassle to search for your car hidden beneath a thick layer of snow and then dig it out so you could go to school or work.
Those are really a lot of golden leaves. I am sure Nathan must have gotten a bit excited at the sight of them, and maybe even wanted to go out and enjoy the lovely weather. Whenever summer rolls around in Australia, I’d think of mangoes. As a kid, I was fascinated by this mango commercial on Australian TV and loved eating them 😀
When I think of winter in Finland I always have hot chocolate on my mind. In my childhood we would go for Christmas holidays to Finland to our cottage and spend there a couple of weeks. Sometimes it was really really cold there so when I had hot chocolate and it was still too hot to drink i would place it outside for a few minutes. Well once I had the hot chocolate there for 10 min and it was frozen solid 😀
And then I suppose no more hot chocolate for you when it turned hard as a rock 😀 Hot chocolate wasn’t a big part of my childhood. I do drink it every now and then, but it’s certainly not my favourite hot drink.
I never had any real favorite drink…it was probably just water as it is still now. I dont like to drink softdrinks etc, only on few occasions so I have just water wherever I go :p
The hot chocolate was always nice for cold days in Finland though
My favourite drink is water too. Whenever I go out to drinks with friends, I demand a water from the tap…don’t like paying for it 😀
In Germany you actually got to pay in restaurants for tap water…in Finland each table gets free tap water
Good with just positive enjoyment of life every once in a while!
Indeed it can be rather nice once in a while :p
It is just so annoying when you have weeks of grey sky and rain so you forget about all the nice things outside
Hehe, it’s nice that you remembered 🙂 I seem to be the exact opposite of you, I only seem to remember the good things xD
Hehe, at least you have always good memories of things unlike me :p
But I guess I am then also prepared when something bad happens and more glad when some good things happen (strange things on my mind 😮 )
That intro picture is pretty awesome! So many fallen leaves!
I miss fall in Canada. In Taiwan, the only sign the fall is here is the weather is not as hot.
I wonder why my in laws would think about fall here except that it is too cold for them. I bet they never saw red, brown and golden leaves 🙂
Beautiful weather, I love it. Fall is my favourite time of year, especially those bright, sunny, slightly cool, and amazingly colourful days. Glad you got to enjoy some of this nice weather even if it was a little brief.
So far we had luck as the past days have been all sunny 🙂
On days like this, you forget how cold and rainy fall can also be:) I love chestnut animals and I even think my mom still got some of the animals (or actually it was more “aliens”) my sister and I made, when we were kids:)
Oh yeah the chestnuts monsters. I actually build also some houses and cars 🙂
That would be great to see how those fall colours translate in tundra in Lapland.
Fall is my favourite season. It is the season that first inspired me to write poetry as a young teenager.
Enjoy, relish in your autumn there, CCF.
The tundra in Lapland does surely look stunning during late summer and autumn. Hope I’ll have time soon again to travel there
The temperature is dipping in Turkey esp at my place of work. The sun is high in the sky, the chill penetrates our clothes. The winter coat is here to stay till March/April, I guess. However, the leaves do not wear their Autumn colours, some turn a shade of brown.
The radiators are turned on centrally; its on low throughout the night and all through the weekend. I am not sure if there is double glazing in this part of Turkey.
They have lots of solar panels but only for hot water only.
When we lived in Finland the heating was thankfully no issue. Heating is for free there, hot water is coming straight from the pipes and the Windows even got four layers of glass!
Lovely colors. Thanks for sharing a special time. And you are so right, autuum is lovely when it is sunny 😉
Yeah autumn is really great when the weather is on your side. Now it gets colder and colder each day though
Well, it feels like it’s getting hotter and hotter over here!
Oh what fun! Fall used to be my favourite season in Canada – I loved the crisp nip in the air, the fall colours… the rhythm of being in classes, knowing also the theatre, symphony, opera and other ‘seasons’ were beginning too! Whereas Oct / early Nov is super sweaty time in Mumbai – even hotter than Apr – June… Just have to wait it out until it cools…
Though I have never been a big fan of the colder times I love them each time I am coming back from China. There it is just so hot and humid all the time during early autumn and then it feels so refreshing when arriving in Europe
Haha! Indeed! Part of why I enjoyed my Nov break last year in Amsterdam so much. 🙂
Fantastic fall colors!
Thank you, fall is an amazing season especially in north Finland!