24 Years Later

(Two weeks ago yesterday)
Here I am with Steve and Craig, the first time we've been together for 24 years. I meet them at Uxbridge tube station at 1:00pm. Lunch in The Three Tuns pub. The U2 bus to Clifton gardens. As we step off the bus, there is a noise. A motorcyclist has come off his bike and lies prone on the road where I used to catch the bus home from school.
Walk up and see Abbotsfield, our old school, glowering under cosy autumnal skies. Getting on for twilight now. Gates open. We slip into the old metalwork / woodwork block, rumoured to once have been a mortuary when we were at school. Same old green walls. Same tiles on the floor. Get caught by the caretaker. Craig shows him his dog-collar (he's now a priest) and he allows us to look around the playground unmolested.
Shifting into the past. The playground looks larger than expected. Same old horror comic vibe that always accompanies these returns to where I spent my adolescence.
Bus back to Uxbridge. Back to the pub.
It was a good day.

Remembering the Night Before

Walk back from work last night with Millie and Maria. Quick walk; scooting up the hill, under the viaduct, over Seven Dials then along Cromwell Road. Everything is orange and black, and deep with this sudden autumn. Pause outside Millie's house. She disappears into the darkness of the passage by the side of her house - she lives in the garden flat. After a while the light switches on, and she disappears now into the light.
Cross the lights with Maria. Wave goodbye (she lives around the corner from Millie) and head on home, The Co-op down Blatchington Road, cross Sackville Road onto vast expanse of Portland Road. Look down the road to Portslade, those double headed lamps headed out, like a line of sentinels headed not toward Portslade but some other, equally everyday town I have never known, but catch glimpses of on mornings like this while I'm remembering the night before.

Autumn almost Triumphant

(Yesterday)
Watching the call-centre sky from a morning shift at work. Too hot in the morning, as always. Still too hot to wear a jacket! Gathering clouds. Love that phrase. A sense of conspiracy in the sky. gather for rain if course. Why else would they gather?
Finish work at 1:30pm. Raining. Oh yes. This is it. This feels like autumn. I wander into Waterstones where I buy a paperback copy of 'The Conspiracy Against The Human Race' by Thomas Ligotti. Light rain. Autumnal relief. Tescos. Dinner. Vacuum and tidy up. Deposit clothes away from the flor and into the clothes bin. Sleep (for a bit).
Wake up. An hour so till I leave for the pub. Twilight room. Happy in the evening. Cosy-comfy. Could drift on the bed and not go out. Flick through books and comics. Listen to unlistened to albums. I download Savage Republic's 'Ceremonial' album.
Go out.
Step into that cool evening air. Wait for the bus.
It doesn't feel like summer any more.