Last Lovely Day of Fall?

A perfect pear for a salad with fresh curds, walnuts, and a honey-yogurt dressing on romaine

The weather is starting to change here in Yerevan. In fact, we may actually have rain for a few days according to the weather forecast. Of course, I knew the atmospheric pressure was changing before this was announced because my migraine sensors were working overtime!

Each warm sunny day recently has seemed like it might be the last. Today I decided to enjoy it by taking a long walk in a lovely part of the city--what we might think of as the NE quadrant of the central city. This is an area anchored by the Opera House and Cascade at the western edge (or 12 o'clock) and reaching to Abovian Street (3:00 o'clock), which is the longest street in the city at 1.6 km long.

Abovian--who disappeared at age 39 in 1848

Khachatur Abovian was an early 19th C writer who first wrote in what became known as the Eastern Armenian language. In fact he wrote the first novel in that language, Verk Hayastani (Wounds of Armenia), and his statue crowns the street named after him in the circle just outside the National Folk Art Museum and at the base of the hills which surround the city. The statue of Mother Armenia looks down on the circle from high above. I am sure she is proud.

I felt a certain sense of melancholy as I walked today--the changing air, the yellowing and falling leaves. But the green space or green belt in that part of the city was full and lively, if a little subdued by the season. Young men were enjoying the publicly available ping pong tables, couples were taking advantage of the privacy that public spaces offer, groups of friends of all ages were gathered here and there on benches, around ponds and fountains.

Some of the summer cafes are facing the inevitable and packing it up for the season. Others are holding out, waiting for a sign more certain than a date  on a calendar that their season is over. One clue that a change is upon us is that different fruits available. Now we see pears and apples more than berries and figs. Whole (I am talking whole, not half) walnuts are available everywhere. The farmers are busy drying fruits, putting up honey, harvesting the nuts and fall fruits, and probably making conserves as well.

We missed the cruelly hot summer for the most part and simply sailed into a lovely fall--at first pretty warm and sunny, now dryer and a little more cloudy and cooler by 15 degrees or more. I think we lucked out, don't you?