Living Alone and Heading towards Winter

September spooks me; it always has. As a kid who couldn’t stand school, being cooped up in a classroom, being fed maths instead of being down the river or in the sand hills, September was like the shutters coming down.
When it was dark for so many hours of the day, and I had to be home when it started to go dark, it was a prison sentence. I didn’t like being home. I liked being outside. I still go outside when I’m panicking about something.
When my son was very young I started to be okay with September. I had a partner; not his father of course, that would be too simple. I had a girlfriend for four years, and she liked cooking and travelling, and we went to Greece, America, all over Ireland, Scotland. I bought a big Morris Oxford Saloon for 500 Quid, had a garden in my Peckham flat, and September was like any other month; until my son started school.
September didn’t haunt me again until my son left home, and I was living alone.