Back to School

In the US, school - and college - reunions are Big Things - or so it seems to me, although I'll happily acknowledge that I may be generalizing from fiction rather than Real Life.  In the UK, not so much, perhaps - although I was very happy to go to my - well, I'd say 50th reunion, only we didn't have one of those - actually, 51st, with the year below (having their 50th) there too, and then ten and eleven years below having theirs.  So it was an odd mish-mash when it came to staring at name tags, although I'd have recognized the people from my year anywhere (not least, perhaps, because there were only eight of us - disappointingly - and a fairly random eight, at that.  That's eight out of a possible seventy or so ... That may, however, say something about how our year regarded our time at school).  So - indifferent prosecco, and some excellent looking canapes that I was too busy talking to stuff in my mouth, and the whole weirdness of being back: some of it - the facade, The Marble (that's the space with black and white flooring), and the main hall (with the organ, though the purple lighting was new) was so familiar that I could have left yesterday, or not left at all - and then there were all the shiny new buildings and facilities that had mushroomed up over the last couple of decades.  It'll all take a while to process.