Ray Foley

The nights are drawing in, the kids are heading back to school, the traffic's horrendous again, and Ray Foley has the September blues.

It’s that time of year again. Actually, it’s almost always “that time of year again” isn’t it? It’s nearly Christmas, so it’s that time of year again, or it’s exam time, so it’s that time of year again. But seriously, it’s that time of year again. And it’s all a bit emotional. Especially for those of us who aren’t parents.

I don’t have kids, but some of my mates on FaceBook have offspring in their homes and have been fervently sharing images of their young; suited and booted in their schoolgoing finery, ready to wage their first assault on the education profession. But they are cute, these poor little nippers who’ve been sold this idea of a big scary place full of big scary kids where they’re forced to drink warm milk and learn Irish while being called a nancy boy by the headmaster. But maybe things have changed since my day.

I don’t suffer from depression, but I do get depressed and I think everyone has a touch of it this week. For most people in my line of work, September is sort of a back-to-work month after the silly season of July and August which is notoriously barren for news stories and callers. We’re all back from our holidays, there are no more fill-in presenters on the schedule, and it’s a time to refocus, knuckle down and concentrate harder on the job. Bollocks to that.

The leaves are about to come down, and sunny mornings greeting us as the alarm goes off will soon give way to pitch-black mornings of night.

My co-presenter JP gets jittery around this time of year. He says it’s because, after twenty-something years of systemic programming by the education system, he starts to feel nervous as soon as the evenings start getting short and the mornings are colder.

And the weather is the most unsettling thought of this time of year. Even though this week has seen glorious clear skies and warm days, there’s an unsettling feeling that the leaves are about to come down, that the central heating will need to be switched on pretty soon, and these sunny mornings greeting us as the alarm goes off will very soon give way to pitch-black mornings of night.

Traffic

The most immediate and obvious impact the back to school week has had on my day is the traffic. A journey to the gym that usually takes me ten to fifteen minutes at 8.30 took me just over half an hour today. Getting to work also takes twice as long and you can forget getting back home before seven. And I don’t live that far from my place of work. And everyone else has a similar story.

Pretty soon, we’ll be hearing the magnificently ludicrous early-morning travel reports of train stoppages due to “fallen leaves on the line”, with hundreds of us left stranded and standing on dark, sweaty commuter trains, with condensation dripping down the windows and the massive bag on that school-kid's back mashing you against the door.

But look at me, being all negative.

Of course, it’s not all bad: Christmas is only 113 days away!