Today

Today has become a funny day for me.

It's a Wednesday to start with, so the hump day, the day we have to get through before we can see the weekend in sight. Even those of us who work at the weekend seem to feel this about a Wednesday.

It's also the end of July and I can stop kidding myself that the year has only just started. Summer has arrived and it's summer holidays for school children and students.

It's meant that I've started thinking about the Autumn, rather randomly.

I noticed I was doing it this morning when the I became aware of a familiar low level anxiety about new students, new marking routines, new modules. I say familiar because it's not a scary new feeling, it happens each year. Which is comforting in a way - I know what it is, although it crept up on me when I wasn't looking

For me Autumn is the start of the year, as it is for many people. In the garden it's time to think about how I want it to look next spring or summer.

In education it's about new courses, new people.

It's the time when we humans sort of hunker down for the winter and start accumulating stuff - stuff we actually know we don't need but we do it anyway. A warm coat, despite having several already, for example.

For me there's a sort of stoicism that creeps in in the Autumn. The summer is over and the weather can be as dreadful as it likes and I won't complain about it.

Which is why it seems so strange that I start preparing for it emotionally as the weather is finally better ish and feels a tiny little bit more reliable

Maybe that’s why I do it...