Summer 2007 has gone......

The weather changed drastically at 3.30pm. It became cold I was shivering and added a sweater to keep warm, and long woollen socks. The sky grew dark so fast by 4pm it was like night. And it began to rain. A strange yet typical Jerusalem rain - heavier than a drizzle but not a shower. You don't hear it: there's no pattering on the roofs or pavements. You just see puddles collecting in the streets but you don't feel the raindrops hitting you. The smell of the ancient stones, baked for 8 months in the hot dry summer, rises to your nostrils everywhere you go, as the rain soothes these heat-trapped stones silently, like rubbing ointment over them. It's a little pungent and smells like the summer heat is giving one last punch before retiring. Summer 2007 is packing up and on its way .... another year is ending; the long cold lumbering winter is here to remind us that a little baby was born in Bethlehem, some 14 kms from where I live, in such a time like this.