It’s always a little depressing at this time of year marked by two events.

Firstly; the whole country goes back onto Greenwich Mean Time. This means that our clocks go back one hour on Sunday morning. We get one hours extra sleep in bed but it then becomes dark an hour earlier on an evening and each week we lose a little more daylight until around Christmas when it never seems to get light.

The Second thing is Halloween; Halloween seems to start off the celebrations heading toward Christmas. Parents spend a lot of money on outfits for their kids who then wear them for a couple of hours while banging on people’s doors for a trick or treat. They must spend more time applying make-up than actually displaying it. If there was a party after the door-knocking it would be worth the effort but it seems they simply return home and go to bed as usual. It’s an American import of course. We only imported the dressing up and knocking part, but not the gatherings afterwards, which makes it all rather a waste to my mind.

Following that we have November the 5th, Guy Fawkes night or bonfire night as it’s sometimes called. Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the English Parliament 400 years ago but failed. I am not too sure whether we celebrate his brave failure or his treachery. Depends if you are a Catholic or a Protestant as to how you feel about it. In truth, no one really cares any more as long as there are fireworks and a bonfire with finger food and possibly beer/wine for the adults. There is sometimes a ‘Guy’, a stuffed dummy who is then burned on the bonfire as an effigy of the man. You do dress the dummy up but don’t dress yourselves; Wellington boots and an old coat that can’t be harmed by smelling of wood smoke for a few days is the usual mode. A lot now simply let off fireworks and don’t bother with a bonfire at all.

I seem to have been in manic mode this last few days. The untidy drawers, cupboards and piles of boxes in my workroom have been gone through. My feeling of achievement is high. Lot’s of things that I have hoarded over the years have been thrown away and many spaces cleared. It’s a great feeling. The tidiness is a minor pleasure.

The Shake-Speare book is still on a low simmer. Stories are still being written but I can’t yet seem able to motivate myself to begin in earnest the re-writing of it; but I will. I am reading a lot about the man still, though a whole chapter seems only to reveal one interesting fact. The rest is irrelevant to my task.