Diligent readers of this Blog will know that yesterday, 21 September, was my birthday. In this piece from 2017 I listed a dozen or more people who were also born on that date. You can add Joe “PE with Joe” Wicks to the list. He was born in 1986. In terms of star sign and the Chinese Year he was born in, that makes him, like me, a Virgo Tiger (whatever that means).

The weather was unseasonably warm yesterday, 25 degrees Celsius here in West London, making it the hottest birthday I have spent in the UK. I was in Spain in 1986 and 1994, and it was at least 25 degrees both times. In the first of those years I was there for the baptism of my brother’s daughter, who is also my first godchild. She too is a Virgo Tiger (again, whatever that means).

Back in the 1980s I made the mistake of saying, “It never rains on my birthday” but have been proved wrong a few times since then. It certainly rained on 21 September 1987, the wettest, most miserable birthday I can remember. But most years, these last few days before the arrival of autumn are sunny and dry, just like the first week of the new school year. I don’t recall any significant rainfall in the first few days of any autumn term. This September, after nearly six months without regular classroom time during lockdown and its aftermath, both of our children went back to school in bright sunshine. I hope it lasts, the sunshine, and the time back in the classroom.