Time ticks, seasons advance, school is about to start

There is nothing as beautiful as walking in the Autumn sunlight of a city that you love, .

Especially when it is a city that you have only really just discovered, and even more especially when that city is actually the capital of the country (or group of countries - if I'm being politically correct) that you have declared your nationality to all your life.

There is nothing quite as lovely at realising that driving on the left hand side is actually the way that things should be done - or that British accents are not in fact intelligent or worthy to be listened to more attentively, or in the vein hope of making friends with the said person-with-accent any more than any other accent. The accents are not cute, they are not smart sounding, they are not a source of endless amusement to Californian friends - they are just normal.

And I am normal - I get it. I understand (well - atleast better than I understand anywhere else). Being in London after a year and a half has been one of the most beautiful of times - terrifying in every sense of the world because being in Britain also means facing normality and means facing the idea of being in one place for atleast the next 9 months.... and worse still it means being caught in my old life of a year and a half ago - in that little Scottish village by the sea, with the conservative politics and the student apathy. Caught back to old friends who I haven't seen in so long and missing new friends and that sense of new adventure that is so addictive and so intoxicating.

But really I can't complain, as yet I am far away from my old university life and am still embracing every beautiful golden filled day of holidays. Atleast I am attempting to think of them still as holidays - I have a horrible feeling that other students are back already and easing their way into freshers fayres and catch-up drinks - but I am still basking in the idea that as long as I feel as though I am on holiday then perhaps I can fool the seasons into allowing the long evenings to remain long and perhaps if I shut my eyes to the trees painting themselves gawdy with reds and yellows, and can pretend to want to sit outside for mealtimes then maybe just maybe winter and autumn term in Scotland won't begin again. So every moment is an attempt at fighting against the clock that ticks on saying 'winter is coming', 'school is starting'. Every swim in the bracing coldness of the seaside waves (and there have been many - thanks to the week long 'family holiday' on the coast of Kent) has helped create the illusion. As has swimming in Trafalgar Square Fountain at two in the morning - before being asked very kindly to 'please refrain from doing that or we will be forced to arrest you'. So too has the afternoon of sipping mudslides with no cream or milk and wondering about STD's outside a cinems I am assured is a film premier place. (ask Frank about that one - Frank if you're reading this - you now know your non-de-plume). Practicing my best Swansea-'ard as nail's accent in the centre of a rather grimy Cardiff city centre, and filming another very old friend/come professional actor as he attempted to explain the ins and outs of the dustbins of Queen's Street furthered my attempts at a sense that the holidays and this last wonderful year still remain.

But it all has been slowly winding to a halt.

Champagne, coffee and the dark intrigue of student film at the London Film Academy graduation yesterday woke me up to a realisation that perhaps Winter really is coming - I found myself huddled under every layer I had brought into the cinema - whispering to the old friend and filmmaker next to me about how blissful thermal underwear is. Today on the banks of the Thames with another friend and last night while sipping red wine at Trafalgar a sudden horrible feeling crept over me. It is just a bit too cold to sit outside - however beautiful the moon, or starry the sky. I tried hard to fight the idea - chiefly by ignoring the complaints, shiverings and chattering teeth of those around me. But I was atlast forced to admit the fact - that when it comes down to it - the sun is setting earlier and earlier and those leaves on the trees might actually be right in falling off the trees and not just some climate change induced freak leaves - winter and autumn in the UK may well be upon us. The chill in the air that makes one think of firesides and hot chocolate as opposed to margaritas and stormy heavy tropical nights is the beginning of the realisation, but in fact, maybe more to the point - I am starting to realise that I am in London and not in the 40 degree heat of Tbilisi or the bright lit skies of California anymore. This is just Britian. And my life is soon destined to be posted in colder climes still and that is just the way it is. And I have to jolly well lump it like everyone else.

So, as Winter sets on and I finish my final few days of pretending I don't have to complete my final year and planning my imaginery travels to Africa or Palestine I must say I give a little bit of a sigh. Only a little one though. I am severely, ridiculously lucky to have done what I have done this year - and I am also outstandingly fortunate to be here, about to finish a degree and a very good Scottish unviersity - however dull and uninspiring the prospect at present seems. I go with a gut wrenching fear in my heart that all the inspirations, the concepts, the people, the change of this past year will fade away once faced once again with theatre soc. and ma-bells - but every time I receive an email from a friend from georgia, or realise that I disagree with almost everyone on issues around feminism or that I listen to the news of America with a different ear I can see that indeed I have changed - and that perhaps in some way or antoher those changes will work themselves into this year. and perhaps this year will be as forming and changing in its own way as the last - as will have been this past year for all of those old friends back in our bitter and breezy home by the sea.