dream-like state

Cannop Ponds, Forest of Dean, Gloucester.  Photographed November 17, 2008.

I'm still wrestling with jetlag: I'm pretty much up at 2:30 a.m. and stay awake until about half an hour before it's time to get up for the day.  It's rather annoying, but I find I'm using the time to think really profound thoughts.  And by "profound" I mean "the incoherent nocturnal ramblings of the sleep deprived."

Thing is, I feel pretty good during the day.  It might have something to do with the scenery.

Early yesterday morning my father-in-law took me on a drive so that I could photograph the amazing foliage.  It dawned on me that even with all my travelling, this was the first time I'd ever actually witnessed the fall colours I'd heard and read so much about.  When I lived here in England, I lived in London, where there wasn't as much green to see change seasons -- just the odd tree or so.  Here in Gloucester and Warwick, however, the hills are covered in brightly coloured leaves ... and I've been really stunned.  

Bob, my father-in-law, agreed it was beautiful, and he said, "You know, if you're from a place like this, you don't really notice it.  I think often you have to leave a place to come back and appreciate how beautiful it is."  He's right, of course:  I thought of how differently I saw Trinidad when we moved there three years ago.  I don't think I'd ever really had an appreciation for how amazingly beautiful it is until I'd moved away for many years, and moved back.

Song:  Love Life, by Fatboy Slim and Macy Gray.  I'm actually not a huge Fatboy Slim fan, but Marcus suggested this, and the title feels apt -- and after you get past the odd beginning, it gets fabulously funky.