Harry and I made the trip back down to Cornwall to retrieve my luggage at the weekend on what, most of you will be aware was the hottest October weekend on record. It was a weekend where Cornwall flipped back to mid July…well, actually I am wrong there, because if it had flipped back to mid July, it would have been like mid October, that’s how arse about face the great British weather has been this year. I have been sunburnt twice in 2011, once on April the 11th and again yesterday, the 2nd of October, I don’t think I have experienced that before and I doubt I will again.

As we drove down the A303 and Harry dozed off in to an IPod induced sleep, it gave me time to try to understand why, once again, my absent mind had led me to this return journey and I think that at last I have come to the correct conclusion. What I am doing is starting new tasks before completing others, leaving me with loads of unfinished business. For example, when I am working at home I can be half way through typing an invoice when a letter pops through the door. Intrigued to what’s in the post I go to get it, forgetting about the invoice. Then the phone rings, followed by an email and I am totally buggered. My luggage was neatly packed by the front door, I nearly took it, but at the last second I bet I got text or something to throw me of course. So now I am going to compartmentalise, from now on, the next task must wait until the first one is complete.

St Mawes Bay

Yesterday we went over the estuary on the King Harry chain ferry and stopped at the lovely harbour in St Mawes. This is where we saw the Dolphins playing and showing off to passing boats, what a lovely sight. We then went on to a beach that was called Carnon (I think) where I paddled and Harry swam in the surprisingly warm waters, but it was here I started getting irrational depression. It was the 2nd of October and rather than enjoying the unprecedented warmth, I couldn’t get it out of my head that this was what our summer should have been like. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that next week it would be cold and that it wouldn’t be warm again for another six months at least. It was like God was playing a cruel game of what might have been…..a bit like Jim Bowen on Bullseye when he used to say” Look what you could have won!”

 The sun sets on the end of summer

I tried to keep my spirits up by taking Harry out to dinner last night, but unlike the previous night, we were the only two eating customers in a pub gearing up for winter, the food was fine, the atmosphere however, was deathly quiet. It wasn’t long before we retired back to the house and went to bed, well Harry did, I didn’t, I sat out on the balcony for ages wishing it was June and that I had the whole summer to look forward to. I didn’t feel like sleeping, but eventually I did, albeit fitfully. As we packed up this morning I noticed a cooler more Autumnal feel to air even though the sun was already clearing the morning mist off the water. I did a compartmentalised checklist one by one turning off the water, then the electrics, before emptying the fridge changing the sheets and doing the hoovering. As we reversed out of the drive, I took one last look down the estuary before diving off with a lump in my throat and a small tear in my eye, this time summer really was over.

Five minutes later I turned round, went back to the house and double checked that I had locked all the doors. I had, but I would never have settled if I hadn’t checked!!