Jacaranda

The Jacarandas have been out in force this year, perhaps reflecting the general moistness and the explosion of vegetation everywhere. It has been a good year to be a flora. Although November is shaping up to be the dryest on record, with the Official rain guage having registered no millimetres, in defiance of the nocturnal emission that awoke me a couple of weeks ago but which had evaporated by the morning.

Notwithstanding all that the blossoms of the jacaranda tree, prone to emerge in October stroke November, evoke cliches of chromatic unrest, striking and rioting as they are and do.

They rain from the trees as they go, leaving magenta shadows beneath the trees which soon fade to a sharp-smelling yellow-brown.

You might observe, incidentally, the monstrous pile under construction behind this tree, an edifice of monumental size which leaves not a square metre untapped for lifestyle exploitation, spreading the identikit tentacles of boutique urbanity with its grey-and-white homoge to build-it-quick and sell-it-fast. The real estate ad features computer simulation pictures.