As winter closes in, with our season tightly wrapped, I instinctively get reflective. For me, this is more clinical, along the lines of questioning what happened, than sentimental. I keep trying to put my finger on it.

That summer is gifted I take for granted. It alone stands out as the one season in which we can expect to conduct our various outdoor festivals, fairs, events, shows. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that summer possesses the Fatal Gift - cited below in a translation from a famous sonnet.

Italia! O Italia! thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,
On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame