The Time of Yellow Snow.

The winds have rendered the Mimosa trees almost vertical, blossom is tumbling onto the terrace where she is sitting.

Yellow snow.

Rain is probably coming, but for now she marvels at the golden cascade surrounding her.

And she remembers her mother.

Her favourite colour was yellow and she too joyfully suffered the gales when they rushed in from the coast.

At times like that she would say that she could 'smell the sea but sense the rain', and then she would scurry around setting pots and bowls and buckets to catch as much of the ‘falling wet sky’ as she could. 

‘Be careful child’, she used to urge, ‘the wild waves are upon us’.

Then her mother would sit, as she was now, looking to the west.

And waiting.