Autumn Term

I always think it's still rather wonderful that despite it being nearly forty years since I was last in education, the beginning of September always has that back-to-school feel about it.

I've been spending the weekend on my own catching up on paperwork at my desk. Rich has been off on a stag weekend  down in the country and will no doubt return happy, and content but tired later this afternoon.

Having just completed my accounts, something that I've done on a Sunday morning since way back in the 1970s when I first left drama school, I was looking at my diary for the forthcoming month. Hey presto, it's busier than it has been since June!

The new term is about to start. Several trips abroad, albeit one of them being a holiday in the 3rd week of September, and lots of little jobs all over the place until late in October. This gives me that contented sort of feel that I tend to associate with the smoky leaf strewn days of autumn. Although I've grown to love the lazy long hot days of summer as I've grown older, as a child I longed for the return of the dark nights. Dark nights meant board games and "playing in"! I think I liked this mainly because it was a cleaner pastime than “playing out", but in a house with real fires the warmth and fun factor of being allowed to stay in during the evenings was not to be sneezed at. Another decider was probably the density of my bedroom curtains. For many years in my early childhood, certainly up to the age of ten, I slept in the back bedroom of a large house next to the two village shops that my parents owned. The curtains were patterned but thin. On a summers evening the light would still stream through them when closed, making it seem wrong to be going to sleep. Closing them in autumn or winter's night gave the bedroom a cosy tucked in feel that encouraged me easily into a world of dreams.

These days the encouragement  is usually in the form of a small pill or a late-night, but there is just something so pleasurable about going to bed on a dark winters night with a good book. I quite like the fact that it starts to get dark now by 8:30 PM.

 While I'm as happy in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt as the next man - particularly happy course if the next man is in very short shorts and a rather tight T-shirt - I think I dress better in the autumn and winter too. I love jackets and scarves, layering different clothes, and chunky sweaters.

 So although I am happy at the prospect of an Indian summer, I'm already pulling scarves and things out of the wardrobe and getting them laundered and ready for those golden days of October. A busy autumn, and hopefully a successful one.