Summer

Summer is the hills' generous, slightly difficult season. The spring green dries to gold, water grows scarce in some corners, and on the worst days a forest fire smokes somewhere on a far slope — but the climate up here is at its kindest just as the plains begin to burn. The heaviest woollens are packed away underground by now, though the nights still ask for a thin blanket, even at their warmest.

It is the season to eat what spring was quietly laying up for us. The kafal ripens dark on the branch, and with it the wild ones the children know every bush for — kilmod, hisalu and bamore, foraged by the handful — while kulam, khubani and aaru, the plums, apricots and peaches, come in one after another. Water is precious through it all, every drop saved for the sowing to come.

School lets out for its short break and the children scatter into the hills. The bright winter migrants have headed back up to the heights by now, leaving the resident birds the woods to themselves. Mornings stay soft, middays turn warm and hazy, and the evening on the terrace is the reward — a slow, fruit-laden escape, the plains sweltering far below.