I know that summer has drawn to a close, and it is not just the cool air, leaves falling from the trees, or the calendar that tells me.  We’ve started to say goodbye to our summer friends.

A couple of weekends ago marked the end of year baseball tournament.  It was sad because we flamed out in a hurry on Saturday morning.  The loss was not the sad part, when you win two games all year it is somewhat expected. The sad part was that we didn’t get to spend the day with the team.  I look forward to that day filled with friends, playing ball and shooting the breeze.  Some of these people I consider to be among my closest friends, even though we see each other between May and September.  I won’t see most of them until spring now.

We’ve also noticed a decline in our weekly playgroup, as some of the children have started school now that they are old enough, and some are returning to school.  The weather has also played a factor here, as we have had a few gloomy mondays in a row, keeping us away from the park.

Our neighbourhood has also gotten quieter.  The neighbours don’t tend to hang around in laneways as much, so we speak to them less, and for shorter periods of time.  With the shorter, cooler days we aren’t at the park in the evenings much, and miss out on the other children and neighbours that we would see then.  We don’t even get to the park as often these days.

So we must look forward to the new friends, and reacquaint ourselves with our winter friends, the ones we see at hockey, gymnastics, and indoor playgroups, and the new ones that we will meet at the rink, the library, and other fun places that we will explore this fall and winter.