Wake me up when September ends

And suddenly, it's September. Time to start hitting the panic button as Moving-In Day draws ever closer. I've been given a few concerns already in the shape of news that my home-to-be is kind of filthy and spider-infested (never encouraging) but that a cleaner is going to be brought in next week, so fingers crossed for a clean house by the time the 11th rolls around.
But I shan't dwell too heavily on that right now. Today was pretty fun, spent in London for a few hours with my lovely sister - who is returning to her uni life a week earlier. Arriving at Buckingham Palace, little did we know it was the perfect

time to witness the daily parade of Royal Guards during the Changing of the Guards. We heard the distant sound of drums and trumpets but didn't think much of it until it started to get louder, and then the first few red-coated guards wielding brass instruments appeared. We stayed for about half hour before crossing St James' Park and finding our way down to Parliament Gardens in the shadow of Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. After taking some time to let my sister do some more sketches - and take in the audible atmosphere around me and distill it into poetry - we answered our stomachs by seeking out a Costa on the first floor of Trafalgar Square's Waterstones and ate our lunch on the steps overlooking the fountains. By this time, it was getting a little cold and bleak, so we took a train from Charing Cross home.
Now it is the end of another day, and I have finally completed Lessing's Memoirs of a Survivor (such a confusing ending) and will move on to Walter Scott's The Highland Widow tomorrow. For now, it's a little relaxation and then to sleep. I'm shopping tomorrow.