The change of season is at long last perceptible, and for the last two or three days it has actually felt like autumn for the first time. The bright warm weather has concealed the fact that the nights are drawing in, but now, suddenly, it is evident. Waking early one morning by chance, at 6:30, I find that it is only just light, after many months of bright sunshine at that hour. This morning for the first time I put the heating on.
It is also suddenly colder outside, some 10 degrees colder than it was last weekend. This morning I looked out to condensation on the car and on the grass and on the inside of the window. The hour change is only two weeks away.
The change in the light level has left everyone in my office yawning this week, as our bodies attempt to adjust to the new conditions. In truth I find that the next 8-9 weeks always leave me feeling somewhat jet-lagged, as the days get shorter quickly.
But it also means that winter pursuits are becoming practicable. It no longer seems like a waste of a nice day to get up this morning and spend an hour on the computer, OCRing Ibn Abi Usaibia, and correcting the results in Finereader 10. Indeed I have done just that, with great satisfaction.
The sun is low this Saturday morning, but the sky is now blue and the sun bright on the house opposite. So I think that I had better get ready to go out!