I’m 41 this month.

Which should probably feel significant in some way that I’m not entirely sure I’ve worked out yet. But here’s what I do know: I bought a new notebook last week, with thick cream pages and the cover is pristine, and when I opened the first page and smelled it, I felt exactly the same thing I felt at eleven years old on the first day of September.

August doesn't announce itself. It just - softens.

The light changes first. Not suddenly, not dramatically, just one morning you step outside and everything is the colour of honey. Not June's bright dazzling clarity, not July's thick gold. Something quieter than both. The particular amber warmth of a month that knows it's the last of its kind, and is taking its time about it.

The fields around Somerset have already been harvested, the golden stubble glowing in the evening sun, dust hanging lazily in the still air as the tractors move from field to field. The house wakes already warm. The curtains barely move.