The last time England regained the Ashes, four years ago, I watched the final day's play in the living room of the house in Sheffield I'd moved into the day before. New to the city, I knew nobody with whom I could share the occasion, jubilant texts to friends elsewhere substituting for in-person celebration. This time, I listened to the last two sessions in the house in Miami I've inhabited for the last year (less three months of summer), again devoid of company, again with digital communication compensating. Four years ago, the particular was new, but the general familiar; a new house and an unfamiliar city, but a city whose character was of the same stock as every other English town, pace that mythical South Yorkshire exceptionalism. This year, it's somehow the opposite. The particular - the house, the city - are familiar, but the general seems as strange as ever.

It takes me perhaps a day of being back in the UK to feel comfortable. Here, I reckon on a fortnight, particularly after the long summer holiday, before I feel settled. Just like when I return to Durham, I can note the changes in my immediate environment: the creepers that have grown 10 feet over the summer to swaddle the hammock, the avocado tree now laden heavy with coconut-sized fruit, the spiny-backed orb weavers (below) whose summer webs crisscross the garden. But the sense of secure belonging in the wider context that I enjoy back home is unsurprisingly absent here.


Having been here before, though, some things are easier than they used to be. A couple of emails, and I was set up for a game of football three days after I arrived. A typical Miami experience, this. I cycled for 10 miles through a heavy thunderstorm, eschewing the road for the pavement owing to the four inches of standing water flooding the inside lane. The storm cleared as I got to the pitches, leaving a clear and sunny day, but somehow not assuaging the humidity. The moisture that beads on your palm if you clench your fist might have been wrung from the air rather than formed from your sweat, so thick is the air. 90 minutes later, and another 1o miles cycling home, my teammates expressing bewilderment at my readiness to go such a distance under my own steam. Night fell fast as I went; no drawn-out dusks this close to the equator, and no let-up in the heat either, the nights barely four degrees cooler and still cloying.

Term starts again on Wednesday, my final semester of coursework. The days before it does have been and will be filled with administration and preparation. Renewing my ID card, servicing my bike, writing my syllabus, catching up with friends, readjusting to a life both mine and not mine. The summer, fun as it was, has gone, and isn't a fair comparison to life here anyway; I can only enjoy those three months as I do because I come back here to do this. Give me a week or so, and I'll be enjoying this too again. For now, though, it's mostly feeling like duty.