Cloudy and humid this morning. Nature is shifting towards autumn and the university is gearing up for the new academic year. The two timetables seem to meld together naturally . The French call this glide into September La Rentree and treat it as a kind of mini New Year. In France the seasons shift slowly. Here it's much more sudden.
A few fresh faced early bird students can be seen dragging wheelie bags towards their dorm rooms. New faculty go to 'welcome and induction' courses where they learn how to navigate the peculiar complexities of educational bureaucracy. They don't look happy going in and they don't look any happier coming out. The area around the golf course remains busy with boisterous Labor Day visitors but 300 metres away the university end of town is not just quiet but deserted. We wonder how many visiting golfers even know there's a medieval cathedral here.
Three horses and their riders are heading back to the farm after their canter back and forwards along the sand. We wave politely . The usual cast of dog owners are out and about but apart from them we have the place to ourselves. The rhythms of summer are ending and the routines of winter are quietly slipping into place.
We pass a medical school classroom where the IT department are working overtime to get all the systems running smoothly for the return of the youngsters. Something ever so slightly apocalyptic about the sight of an empty lecture theatre with no one in it but all the lights on and the screens flickering away.
An eclectic mix of books on a table in the book shop. This week I've read a book about the small ice age and the rapid fall in European populations during the 6th century. Climate change has always been a thing. I've now started on the 'Blood Dawn' book about Asia in the 30's and 40's which is a subject I knew nothing at all about. This week there are book readings by authors on subjects as varied as Agrippa, Persian cookery, Galician mysteries and Celtic poetry. A former Prime Minister will be here next Saturday. This will attract a large audience and due to the numbers will be held in a local church instead of the bookstore. In a small university town there is always something to do.
The last of the bees hard at work on the lavender. I thought they might be gone by now but a few soldier on. We see two Swallows darting low over the beach but the House Martins and Swifts seem to have preempted them and already headed off on the long journey south. Gulls, pigeons and crows have settled in for the duration. We see a dozen partridges in the potato field. When the seasons turn they really turn. Three young deer appear in the courtyard which is a source of delight. Life, as you can probably tell, is gloriously dull amid the pre-semester calm. These days I'm all for living in a place that's dull.
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8 comments:
Hari OM
Oh no, Angus, not dull, never that! Quiet, yes, occasionally uneventful, but never, never dull!
As an aside and in case anybody as at all interested, I did a post yesterday on the different juvenile stages of Gulls... YAM xx
Thank you for the link. What a wonderful insight into the ever present gull population. The youngsters still prowl the busy streets here oblivious to the speeding traffic.
As a horse-made child, I decided to write a book about famous horses, and I recall that Clever Hans was included. I never realized his actual contributions to science until today, however. We are in the middle of la Rentree here, and the season is discernibly changing, most recently with a storm that left everything covered with red dust from the Sahara. We would wash it off but that would be against the drought restrictions, which will reportedly continue through September. I wonder if you had these dust storms where you were, further west?
"horse-mad"!
The time of year, that makes me want to nest for the coming cooler weather.
They were very common in Italy and fairly frequent in France where a lot of the dust was trapped in the Spanish rain shadow side of the Pyrenees .
Our temps in So Cal have been near 100F the week, but the list is changing - softer, more shadows. Fall ties it's time arriving here. Beautiful photos today, Angus.
Lovely bee picture. Very interesting links, as usual, today. I was especially intrigued by the boredon essay. And a very large thank you to Yamini bfor mentioning her blog about seagulls. We are heading to the New Jersey shore next week and now I will be better informed about these noisy birds?
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