Not Quite Dark

Went for a stroll and ran into Em, who herself was going for a stroll. We ended up walking down Portland Road and then up to the Old Shoreham Road and back past the cemeteries. An incredibly mild night, and strangely light too. It had all the pale and not-quite-night texture of early summer. not one trace of winter here...
January 2004. The night before Andy moved down. In St Nicholas Churchyard with Paul, lying on a tombstone, and a stunning un-winter warmth. Smoking and lying and watching the sky, and I think I had just lost a pen that I had been using on a picture I had been working on for a month or two. Paul, insane and rich, offered to lend me the £15 for a new pen, but I found the pen when I returned home.
Almost felt like hopping over the walls into the graveyard, wander among the not-quite-dark pathways till I find the place I used to go to over the summer of 2010 when I was unemployed. After signing on at Portslade job centre I would come here, smoke cigarettes and daydream and but cheap energy drinks from a small newsagent up on the Old Shoreham Road.