Lemon Yellow, Forest Green, Sky Blue, Red-Violet, Burnt Sienna

I'm sitting in a hard chair, at a keyboard, typing away on subjects that I know too little about-metanarratives, identity, tribalism and visual language. The weather is warm outside but autumn is definitely on its way, there is the smell of cooler wind and the rustle of leathery dried leaves on branches. The sunlight is quickly moving south on the horizon. These are, perhaps, the Northern Hemisphere's sure signs of seasonal change. In England, autumn means the spiders are out spinning webs and windows and doorways and gardens are full of gauzy silk, threaded taut or sprung from their moorings, waiting for lazy flies and dying wasps to stumble in. The sloe berries on the blackthorn bushes up the street have the beginnings of a dusky bloom - I'll pick them in a few weeks when it's a bit colder - there's nothing like a glass of sloe gin on ice, during the winter holiday season. Autumn here means apples and cider from Kent and Somerset. Autumn here means inexplicable rituals like Bonfire Night in Lewes. Autumn means the last Bank Holiday Monday for a long, long time, and rich, brown and smooth conkers. Autumn for me, personally, means an unidentifiable melancholy that lasts until the end of October. Autumn in the UK means wet washing indoors and woolen sweaters and leather jackets. Autumn is an open gate to the new year and a closed gate to feeling young.

Five months ago I wished away the summer. My wish is coming true.

Wanderlust

I've been getting the urge to wander lately. It happens when I'm particularly stressed out or in need of some new scenery. Fortunately, London allows my wanderlust to be satisfied, to a degree. I was speaking about my urge with a friend who told me that she wished that the UK still had a bohemian set (ala Bloomsbury) - wandering philosophers who weren't tied to a job - that fed society with ideas, practical, wacky and unimaginable. Internet communication does that to some extent, but there's nothing like getting together with great minds to discuss things that scratch below the surface. The physical wandering will have to wait, for me, for now. I've got things to attend to, however, another great thing about the Internet is the chance to see the, yet, unexplored. I've come across an updated version of a BBC idea that runs a camera the length of the London to Brighton train line and then speeds it up. This newer, time-lapse version of the journey is one that I've taken many times. The nice thing about this is that you can be there in two minutes, rather than 50-odd. Happy viewing.

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside...

Monday afternoon. I'm still thinking about the weekend and my visit to the South East coast. Brighton, in East Sussex, is a lovely little town, and together with its neighbour to the west, Hove, make up the City of Brighton and Hove. I believe it was given city status by the Queen, in 2000, to commemorate the millennium - most 'cities' in the UK are required to have a cathedral, the status is not normally based on population. There's something so fresh and exhausting about the sea. I walked along the shingle beach and found some rubbish that had washed ashore from France (a 3-ring binder with French writing and logo - vive la France!) Across the water, some 40 miles away is Dieppe, which has a lovely museum at the top of a hill with a collection of Georges Braques paintings and prints, as well as some Walter Sickert paintings, which are quite haunting. What you may not know about Sickert is that there is speculation, in some circles, that he was actually Jack the Ripper.

The gardens in Sussex Square were in full bloom and I spent about an hour just sitting on a bench in an ivy-covered suntrap, reading the newspaper. It was glorious. If you'd like to have a look some pictures of the gardens just click here.

The sea air really does wear me out and I took a nap in the middle of the afternoon, which is something I haven't done in AGES! Now, here I am at the beginning of another week wishing that the weekends were longer or Brighton was closer. I will have to wait until next Saturday for another dose of positive ions...