Autumn

Pirate ship moored in the garden, 21 Well Road (pic by Euan Adamson)

I knew the seasons had turned as I walked back from Brodies yesterday evening in what felt like frosty air. Also, I have stopped taking my anti-histamine tablets which means the midge season is over. And tomorrow I go back to school - well, the Crichton campus of the University of Glasgow -, to embark on a year's study which may lead to an M.Litt in 'Environment, Culture and Communication' devised and supervised by Dr David Borthwick. Not coincidentally, I am well on my way through a re-reading of Jonathan Raban's masterpiece Passage to Juneau - a sea and its meanings. This is a masterly, well-researched in depth account of a courageous single-handed sailboat journey from Seattle to Juneau in Alaska, through the perilous waters of the marine highway of the northwest Pacific coast of Canada and the USA, incorporating apparently seamlessly the history of the native peoples and the western explorers who charted the waters and the author's shocking personal discovery on his arrival at his destination.