Mid February. For one night we return to Cambridge, along with most of those in our year group. Leave work early on the Friday, take the train up. Grab hot chocolates in our favourite cafe where we used to pass time between lectures, then half pints of Aspalls by the river. Hurry back to hotel rooms to get dressed for dinner. Dine in the hall, candlelight and polished silver. Head to the college bar, cheap drinks from plastic cups, old faces. Go out dancing, fill the dancefloor, all of us, make like it's 2006. Work, London, everything, a million miles away, forgotten, or not even happened yet.
The next morning we wake and wander, through mossy stoned colleges with elegant quadrangles, and the market with its striped awnings. Later, get dressed changed into our gowns, polished shoes, neat hair, greet parents, receive our MAs.
Overwhelmed with memories, remembering when this was my world.
We've had so many days of warm sunshine recently, but I think this one might have been the first. The last weekend in February. In the pub the night before, making friends with inquisitive dogs, spilling Sambuca all over my handbag, last ones in the room as the staff upturned chairs and swept the floor. Waking fuzzy headed on the Saturday to sunlight, bright and warm, then on a whim deciding to go to Richmond to meet M, sticky, aniseed scented handbag and all. Drinks by the river and a stroll along the water, painted boats and blue sky, early blossom. Lunch from the farmers market then the overground back North to meet Anna for a coffee at the Camden Arts Centre, sitting in their garden above the Finchley Road for the first time that year. 
