In my country, there's a tradition that every falling leaf you catch in the autumn represents one perfectly happy day in the next year. Long ago we used to try and catch falling leaves every September and October: running around St James's Park under the great plane trees, chasing the wind along little Sussex lanes. It was an end in itself, the happy day conjecture was just an excuse. When we were on our big trip to Poland in 1997 (visiting my brother and sister-in-law who were posted in Warsaw), we drove our little hired car into the hills, looking for snow, and stopped at a small spa town called Rabka. It was Easter week. We climbed up to the ski lift platform, through a whirling blizzard, through a snowy forest. We stumbled upon a forest hut, where they served russian dumplings and hot lemon tea. We got lost, we got found, we built a snowman, we were rescued by a miraculous deer. When we were safe again in the roadside bar, eating ribs and warming our soaked socks by the fire, snowy night outdoors, Gabriel said, that must have been a falling leaf day.

He was right. There are falling leaf days. They are very few, not always spectacular, but unmistakable. They only happen on holidays, so this is, in fact, the travelogue feature.

this is the latest:

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