'But the Summer had passed ...'

'But the summer had passed,' writes Kathleen Jamie in her beautiful book Findings, 'and already, like migrant birds, my university students were arriving, waiting for the teaching term to begin, expecting to be taught how to engage with the world in language.'
I'm migrating myself, heading to the South West of England, getting in gear for my first term teaching at Plymouth University. My focus has shifted to course preparation, with that little incidental of setting up a new home ... and New Writing North's Mentoring roadshow (up in Lancaster tomorrow).
It's time to jot notes for my novel down in the back of my manuscript book, should they flit away before my writing time resumes. I do feel recovered by the summer, blowy as it was. And I look forward to the engagement of a new term, after a 'sabbatical' year of fulltime writing. It's been tough work, but a treat,

(The photo is from a window at Dornoch cathedral, visited this summer)