A Second July in Worcester

The light is different in Worcester - wetter somehow - and the clouds in the sky are thicker. The bits of sky behind the cloud, glimpsed between the white is of a near-autumnal blue.
Out of the window in the kitchen there were trees in the distance, nodding in the breeze in a way that does not happen back in Brighton.
Met Em at Birmingham New Street at 1:30pm. The three hour train ride up was a lulling affair, hypnotised by the passage of the countryside out of the window. Strange greys and summer fields made restless by the wind; the pale undersides of leaves, revealing themselves with sudden violence. Glimpses of shadows within tiny clusters of trees. Miniature woods in the muddle of fields, islands amongst dull yellow seas.
Waking in the quiet of Em's flat this morning, difficult to rouse myself from dream-heavy sleep. A sudden quiet over Brighton, as if sobered by the rain, but I'm not sure whether it rained last night or not.
The last time I was in Worcester in July was 1998, thirteen years ago. I actually remember this week back then. I spent the days reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying in the garden of 136 London Road, drawing in my sketchbook. Ruth had left for Poland for the summer, Al had moved out to Happylands, and Joe had left for the West Country after his few days working at Lark Hill Station, a job I was to take over the next month.
It seems impossible that that summer happened in the city I'm in now. The Worcester of the 1990s and the Worcester of the 2010s seem to occupy different space as well as different time, and yet, still be the same place. I suppose because I am a visitor here now but once this would have been home.