A touch of the vapours

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth...* Yeah, Shakey may have beaten me to that one by a few hundred years, but it feels like the right time to be melancholic; there's no more summer in the air, the last first-class overs go down tomorrow, club outfields are beginning to grow long as the final matches ebb away. Last week the sun came down at a low angle and because of all the rain the grass was an almost iridescent green, just like it is in that picture of Steve Waugh walking off at the SCG late in the day after one of his final innings, a deep shadow cast behind him.

Today I picked up a book that mentioned Alf Gover and it got me thinking about the old man. It was all so long ago, yet it's still sweet and bitter in the memory. I googled some pictures of the school and I could almost feel what it was like to be there, and it was strange and sad to think it exists now only in the minds of people who knew it. It made me want to find some of them, but then maybe best not.

The end of the season. It always comes for you, one way or another...

* Is that the greatest passage in the English language? I didn't used to think so - I was a St Crispin's Day man - but at these times of year, with the weight of experience, maybe it is. Till next spring at least, then it's old Henry again...