My head knows that the seasons here in Tasmania are back to front from my UK background. So I’m posting this monthly series to record the changing seasons and to encourage my mind to grasp this southern hemisphere reality.

As I post on this last day of spring, it is blue skies and temperatures in the mid twenties. A perfect day for the seasonal fruits that are now available.

November has been another month of beautiful, colourful flowers.

Now that blossom has long gone, small seed pods are growing on the trees, whether acorns, chestnut, sycamores or gum trees.

Farmers are harvesting their winter grain crops and watering other crops on a huge scale.

It has been a month spent outdoors, at twilight markets and weekend music events. Cooking on our new barbeque on our balcony, whether dinner or brunch.

After my encounter with a native reptile in the wild, last month, I got up close and personal with snakes and blue tongue lizards at the Huon Show. I touched both creatures and can now recognise a tiger snake from a copperhead. The “reptile man” was very informative so I shouldn’t be so freaked out when I next come across one of these locals on a bush walk. With the warm weather, reptiles are out and about after their winter hibernation.