Tempus fugit

I've been writing this blog for five years and a few months, and probably every June I say how much I love this time of year, when it's light until late. I spent much of this evening in the garden, which is suffering from the neglect of the past couple of months, and I took this photo at 10pm. The sun wasn't exactly splitting the paving stones; but then it wasn't doing that at midday either. As you can see, it was still very much daylight. Now, at twenty to midnight, the sky is dark blue but it's far from black and in a very few hours, dawn will break.

I had my very last class yesterday. I felt that there ought to have been streamers, flags, balloons. But in fact it was whimpery rather than bangy because in that class, most of them are actually finished, so that it was only the tail-end-Charlies who hadn't quite got their act together who needed to come. They came. They went. And, alone in the classroom, I looked out of the window at various students coming and going outside, young and with their lives before them, and thought... well, this is it. The End.

Actually, it's not quite the end because there are another eleven days of term after this one, and various even-tailer-end-Charlies will come wandering into the office with assessments clutched in their hopeful hands. And I have a LOT of clearing out to do: twenty years' worth of lesson material (and some extremely old bits and pieces dating from before I even started work at that college) that I've hung on to just in case I ever needed it again. Though most of my stuff is now on line, really. And I don't suppose I ever will need it again, though I'll probably keep a couple of pen drives with some of my material because ... well, just because. I suppose I might do some tutoring at some point.

Five years ago we were thinking about Daughter 1's impending wedding and now we're thinking about Daughter 2's. I was much happier five years ago. Five years from now, Grandson will be approaching his fifth birthday and.. who knows what else?