We have had a lovely sunny day here today. Similar to the warm weather that we enjoyed two weeks ago, which was probably the nearest that we are going to get to an Indian summer, or even a summer at all. It has reminded me of the autumn that I started university. The mature pale sun in the baby blue sky was generating the same pleasant autumnal heat that I remember so well from those first few weeks in Bath. The trees are turning and the atmosphere felt just as it did then. It is almost impossible to put the feeling into words. When Keats wrote the phrase 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' he should have won an Oscar or a Nobel prize, but I doubt that he got anything. That phrase is probably the best description ever of warm early autumn weather and can not, nor will not ever be improved on.
After the drive from East Yorkshire to Bath, which had taken the best part of a day, my parents deposited me at the university campus, where I had been allocated a room in one of the halls of residence. I was left to do some unpacking while my parents went to check into their hotel for the night, before driving back to Yorkshire the next day. Then they were coming back to collect me to take me out for a meal. In the mean time a mist had descended and my father had difficulty finding the university campus. There were no mobile phones or satellite navigation in those days. I just had to wait and hope that I had not been abandoned.
We do not have a pub in our village so about once a month a bar is set up, for the evening, in the village hall. It is a chance to meet the neighbours. The surroundings are basic and the drink is cheap. It's almost like being back in the union bar.
Do I want to turn the clock back? I am not sure. Probably not.