Dismal outlook

Why is it that when you visit somemwhere for the first time it is great and then all of the subsequent visits don´t seem quite the same?...not that the place has become boring, it just doesn´t have that certain something...or so I have been told. I feel that today I have discovered this to be somewhat true, and it really saddens me.
This event was a particular highlight of the social calendar last year, but this year it all seems frighteningly dull. Perhaps it is because the weather is dismal in comparison, or perhaps because my best friend is now half way across the world and isn´t here to share dinner with us in her sunlit kitchen, while we wonder why this ever has to end...I don´t understand why it doesn´t feel the same this year. I have had more fun this year than I have had in a long time and yet it all seems to be coming to a crashing halt and end. It strikes me that, having essentially disappeared for a month, I have come back to a different dimension...it is like "Sliders" everythng looks the same but it feels so different. Did I change or did everyone around me? I really don´t know...