Springtime, baby

It's spring! Officially it is, and also it's been feeling like it alright, especially when you don't have to go out in full winter gear. The scarf, yes, but it's only ornamental.

On Thursday, as the first of at least a few days of temperatures above 4C, I went out for a walk in suburbia. Got myself a sandwich at Dagwood's, and then looked for a cafe to finish my book (the one I remembered being close to home seems to have closed down sometime in the past few months and replaced with a dollar shop...) but instead found that the seasonally open ice cream shop was now open, and has also replaced its Nestle ice cream counter with a real selection of gelato made in the shop! I usually choose not to mix fruity flavours with creamy ones, so went with a triple selection of amaretto, cream cappucino, and white chocolate (with the chocolate not exactly homogeneous with the ice base of the gelato).

It smells like spring. Last year, today in fact, I left for Japan and skipped the transition from winter to spring. It has its experimental value, I guess, although I can't really put it in words. When I came back from Asia, it was already summertime. I will always remember walking between the small houses on the hillsides of Nagasaki, at the exact moment when summery spring stroke (when you actually don't need a coat, think you're better off in t-shirt, and are starting to look for your sunglass clips). In the morning of that same day, I was travelling in Kyushu on the rapid train from Fukuoka, and passed fresh green rice fields. The only picture I thought of taking was on the way back - a blurry pic at sunset which gave the same rice fields a sort of cold blueish tinge.