I used to think that spring was my favorite time of year. As a spring-child, I’m born to love the feeling of new things blossoming. The ease with which April and May seem to flow by while days get warmer, evenings get lighter and people you love and cherish get sun kissed noses and start spending all their time outdoors.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve changed my mind. Fall has moved to the top of the list of my favorite seasons, and though I love barbecuing in our summerhouse garden, swimming in the sea or drinking my morning coffee in the summer sun, nothing beats the melancholic and gloomy feeling, that comes with falling leaves, the first fall storms and the woolly sweaters you suddenly feel like wrapping yourself and your children in.

I love red cheeks on my children’s faces when we have been outside playing in the park all day. I love kicking the fallen leaves, and throwing them in the air and letting them rain down on me. I love sitting on a blanket under a tree, enjoying one last picnic before the winter really kicks in. I love freshly picked apples. I love New York all dressed up in the most amazing rusty red colors. I love drinking my coffee hot again. I love to watch my children explore nature in another way that they did during summer. I love to watch squirrels bury their acorns for winter. I love that I can wear wooly sweaters, light jackets or even a long pair of pants without sweating and overheating. I love that I can wear shoes and boots (this morning i walked out only wearing sandals, and I was actually feeling cold). I love that it’s now ok to stay in all day and do little projects like drawing, painting and sewing with my kids. I love pumpkins and houses all dressed up for Halloween. But most of all, I love that fall will be followed by winter, which will be followed by spring, then summer and then fall again, and that i’m living in a city, where seasons are so explicit and changes so radical as here in New York. Those are the things I love about fall