Its that time of year, Autumn is losing its grip and once the damp seeps in there is only one way to get this old Victorian house really warm and given the fact that we had the aged outlaws visiting all weekend this became a necessity. But that's ok, I have been making fires since my dad showed me how over fifty years ago - and being that he was a coal miner a coal fire was the measure of those days. And I was thinking at the weekend, we have come a long way since then, a long way indeed. Its Monday morning and Winchester beckons for another huge day with meetings beginning in the morning, then a six hour teaching stint that ends a Masters class at nine and it will be ten before I can eat. But it's ok, it it what it is, like many things in life, you adjust, make do, compromise. I have sisters and nieces working the night shift on the NHS, that must be a hard one and my Dad worked dayshift, backshift, nightshift on repeat all his life. As I type this its dark outside and quiet, I can hear the very faint rumble of the trains as they signal the start of the day - they don't run over night - and soon they will be criss-crossing the viaduct I posted the pother day, which will look like this right now. I love living in a city - its not for everyone but I like the buzz, the noise, the ache but now all I can here are seagulls which also reminds me that I live by the sea, which I also love. As a boy, making the fire in a small, overcrowded maisonette (there were eight of us) in a small village in Scotland from the fifties into the sixties, I used to imagine doing just that, but you never really imagine such a thing would come true. And now too, I work at a University in a Cathedral town, have written books, have had films broadcast on Christmas day, with the listings in the Radio Times, indeed I have done many things and have travelled all over the world - but in three weeks time I am going back to that small village to see my dad, who taught me to make a fire all those years ago. 
I have booked the flight and a car, and I can't wait to get there. Last time we had a chat about books - and he is a great reader, The Time Traveler's Daughter, which he thought a good short story told too wrong (and who was I to disagree). Happy Monday! Jessye Norman isn't everyone's cup of early grey at this time of day, but everyone should hear Four Last Songs of Strauss:
