I am about to pack my political anorak and head for my very own three week social season. Forget the Last Night of the Proms or Royal Ascot, no, the party conference season is where all the action takes place.
So Birmingham beckons and the Liberal Democrat conference where the party looks to 'celebrate' 500 days in power. Well that's not quite true. Some of the party will be celebrating and others would rather be 'commiserating'.
Those Lib Dems in government are keen to defend their record. The achievement of their policy goals: the pupil premium; reducing tax on low to middle income earners, a greener, more EU-engaged government.
Lib Dems sitting on the backbenches in Parliament - in both Houses - often appear to be in a different party. Uneasy with coalition and unhappy not to be 'opposing'.
For too long for its own good the third force in British politics was out of power. And that created a mode for some in that party who thought they had signed up to be in a permanent party of opposition with a mantra of no power, no responsibility.
The loss of some 700 council seats in May and the allied disastrous AV referendum campaign has hit the party hard. It has justified some of the oppositionists especially as they watched the Tories gain 80 seats and win the referendum.
There will be a few hundred unhappy former councillors wandering around Birmingham. And for purists, the goal of electoral reform seems further away than ever.
But, and it's a very important but, the Lib Dems ARE still in power and I am a firm believer that the Coalition will stay the course. It would be electoral suicide for them to pull away now.
Over the summer I read David Laws book 22 Days in May - the story of the creation of the coalition and its very early days. I was reminded about what an achievement a joint policy agenda has been in an age of deeply polarised politics.
As the UK faces a low-to-no growth period lasting for much of the remains of the parliament to 2015, it is vital the party sets out a clear direction for the next four years to allow both the leadership and members to have some clear policy goals to hang on to. And they will need to hang onto them very tightly indeed because they are going to face even greater tests in the next three years as the fiscal austerity bites.
For me, the most important conference session is set to take place on Monday morning when the party debates proposals for a so-called second Coalition Agreement which the Lib Dems have entitled Facing The Future. Never was a policy paper so aptly named.
But this substantive debate - and remember, unlike the Tories and Labour, the Lib Dem Conference remains the sovereign policy making body of the party - allows a significant chunk of time for leadership and activists to debate Lib Dem totemic themes including employee ownership; gender equality; a zero carbon agenda and tax avoidance. As well as the 'Orange Book' ideas of free markets and public sector reform.
If the conference can agree a new set of distinctive policy ideas to carry forward into the Coalition agenda then Lib Dems will continue to bring to Government their own positive and radical agenda. They still exert much more power inside the big tent of the Coalition than being left in a state of permanent opposition.
The party has already come a long way in that regard and some Lib Dems might need to be reminded of that next week.