Autumn comes to Aber.

Today, walking home along the Plas Crug, it dawned on me that autumn had arrived. Like spring earlier in the year I'd noticed it coming - the green of the leaves on Penglais hill has been slowly draining away - but suddenly I'm aware that it is here, now; leaves are blowing about the streets, the flags on the prom have been taken down, and the light is increasingly slipping from each day.

So much is happening back home at the moment - engagements and weddings, babies, sickness - that Anth and I are feeling curiously unsettled here. It is good to be here and out of the innumerable places we could be we do feel that it is the right place to be. But we don't have any roots in this place with its strange rhythms and practices. For me it is all too easy to throw myself into work and into the immediacy of teaching and administrative tasks. But then anything concerned with the longer term gets pushed to the periphery. This is a concern.

[Plas Crug]

[Plas Crug]

Down by the sea

[Anth's photo of the Old College, taken from the tower of St Michael's.]

Where have my summer holidays gone? It was such a perfectly clear day today and the waters of Cardigan Bay were like a lake. I was down at the seafront waiting for a staff meeting in the 'High Victorian' Old College, an elaborate (and idiosyncratic) pile that was originally built as a hotel. It was so quiet at around 10.30 that I could hear the engines of small boats way out in the bay. The weather was so good today you could almost be fooled into thinking that it was actually summer and not the beginning of autumn. But the students are coming ... and there are classes to plan.

Ten things we like about Aber (despite the rain)

[Aberystwyth from Constitution Hill - EG]

It has been raining for the past little while now ... so much so that we can't remember the last day it didn't rain. Maybe it was in August? That explains why everything is so green. Now, as the green tends towards more autumnal colours, Anth and I reflect on things we like about Aber after living here for just over six months (in no particular order!):

1. The sea: its just over there ... (we're pointing)
2. The community at St. Mikes.
3. Frequent invitations for a 'nice' cup of tea.
4. Walking home for lunch.
5. The blatant display of consonants on Welsh signage.
6. The smell of oil heaters on cold evenings.
7. Rabbits nibbling the university's fields on the way to work.
8. The cry of the gulls (but not their incessant pooping!)
9. Frequent chance encounters with friends in the town.
10. Cawl, bara brith, and Welsh cakes.

[This is the 11th thing we like about Aber: kneeling sheep - EG]