Overnight, the mountains were cloaked in snow, and this morning they seemed to have leapt closer, looming huge and white where all summer they’d been nothing but distant grey peaks. The wind is cold and keen, and brings driving rain and hail clattering against the windows. The cat stretches out in front of the first of the season’s fires in the log burner.

Overnight, it seems, we have broken from our never-ending summer and have been plunged into winter. And overnight, our meals have changed. Though there are still a dozen cucumbers in the fridge, the thought of a cool cucumber salad is not appealing today. Instead I hunger for potato soup, bread warm from the oven, and hot apple crisp. I eye the pumpkins as I could not on the shorts-and-T-shirt day last week when I harvested them, and I think of gallette, soup, and pie. I am excited by the culinary opportunities the change of seasons presents.

There will be more T-shirt weather, I know. The cucumbers will be eaten. Here in the land of perpetual spring, even winter days can call for iced drinks now and again. But for now, I will enjoy the excuse to eat steaming soup with buttered biscuits, and drink hot tea in the middle of the afternoon.