Just Before You Go, Summer.....

Well, these last few mornings there is a definite autumny shiver in the early air, the top of Bray Head has a wooly cap of damp clouds just sitting on it, and the milky sunlight filters through the apple boughs that are literally bowing under their swag. School is looming, literally imminently, and we are getting ready to embrace our first autumn in a house with heating in it! Suddenly, my love for this season has grown tenfold.
Fittingly, a whole new chapter is beginning for me, in so many ways I couldn't list them here, their microscopicness adding up to a Significantness that thrills me and excites me and has me revving to go.

But first, as a Last Blast before that school business is upon us, and to celebrate the return of my man, we took ourselves off on a little adventure, back across this island of ours again, this time out into the west of Ireland. Poor Jay missed all our traipsing and trekking, all our adventuring on beaches and down boreens, and all the fine, unexpected weather we had, so we just had to squeeze something in. And if this mild weather continues into the autumn, we will just do the same, we will take it and run with it for as long as we can.

We rolled along the winding roads, under those white skies that shower occasional fine rain, that sit high and hard above us, not gloomy, but with a bright glare that turns the landscape into a glowing, magical vista. Everything about it so familiar to myself and Jay, though it's been two decades since we were here, and I found my heart filled with fondness, with tender memories of those young things we were when last we walked the streets of Galway city. Oh how we have changed!

And of course, there had to be a beach, and an extra special one this time, a glowing wonder of a coral beach, the likes of which I'd never seen. The water appeared tropical in it's hues, set as it is against the glow of the coral sand, but I can vouch that it is by no means tropical! It was cold! But in we got, regardless, and it was delicious.

We took a winding road back, the scenic route, stopping whenever we fancied. Meandering, I think is the word, and I savoured the pleasure of unhurried meandering, for I know it is coming to an end now, for another year.

But in the midst of my lament for the end of summer, I admit, I have never felt so ready to get back into the swing and routine of school, of all that autumn brings.
In spite of missing Jay, or perhaps because of it, along with the good weather, we have had The Best Summer Ever. We had to, or it would have been unbearably lonely without him. I have never been more grateful for the brilliant timing of a Random Act of Nature, for this out of the blue amazing summer we had, for it allowed us an excuse to make the most of it, and get out there and enjoy it.

And so, back home now, it's the first day of school, for some, and as I sit with my steaming cup, looking out my window at the slightly worn and fading green that looks partied out and hung over,  the early morning sun is now creeping over the top of the headland, and I hear the first stirrings upstairs, the creak of floorboards above my head, the murmur of sleepy voices. 

And so it begins.