A Near-Miss Memory, a Nearly Deja-Vu

I think it was the curve of the road that did it. A sharp sweep to the right, lined by five or six leafless poplar trees. Looked to my right, a long stretch of sunset tinged grass leading to Blatchington Mill School with the adjoining Windmill Theatre.
Spring air. Equinox evening. A near memory.

Met up with Andy yesterday afternoon, a long meandering walk around Hove Park, passing the petrol station I had spent five years working in. Busy Sunday, all petrol and cars. Glad I wasn't there any more. Cut down to the beach, then met Sarah outside the Wick at 4:30pm.
She was taking some flowers to the Windmill Theatre for someone to give to the choreographer at the end of a ballet performance. We walked up with her, back past Hove Park and the petrol station. Memorioes of only a few hours before.
Cut through suburbia. Nevill Road. A long wasteland of houses. Nothing more. A windmill glimpsed between the buildings. A church looking like a Southern American mission.
Walked up the entrance to the theatre / school. Walking round that curve, under those leafless poplars...
A sudden image, like a memory but not, like deja-vu, but not... I was reminded of something. Going to school? Maybe. A Grey day. Early morning. Rain. Black clouds and the street lamps in the distance still burning. Dead of winter. People wrapped up against the rain. Umbrellas and scarves. Rain hammering down like footsteps.
That was it really. It wasn't deja-vu, as it wasn't accompaned by that feeling of coming revelation that deja-vu always brings. It was more akin to being reminded of a memory one has never had.
A school in the rain.
A curving path.
A line of poplar trees.

It is that strange time of year anyway. The evenings grow longer, now past the equinox, and British Summer Time next weekend. The air has begun to taste of spring, all electric, optimistic yet vulnerable.
The dark days of winter are starting to seem a long time ago now.