Well, we survived Halloween last night, which was a great relief especially to Barney, who doesn`t take kindly to his evenings being disturbed.   I think it helped that we turned off the outside light and didn`t leave a pumpkin on the doorstep - there seems to be a useful convention in our village that you only get `tricked and treated` if you do leave a pumpkin outside your front door - so we had a peaceful evening which by-passed the imported commercial mayhem which Halloween seems to have become.  

So, next stop Bonfire Night with all its gunpowder, treason and plot, scheduled for this coming Sunday.   Now I could understand the idea of celebrating on 5th November if the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 to blow up Parliament and assassinate King James had actually succeeded.  Instead, it turned out to be a dismal failure and so I am left wondering what on earth we are doing spending all that money on fireworks, going to all that trouble and causing yet more mayhem in order to celebrate what was a truly spectacular failure.  

But then it, like Halloween, has turned into yet another commercial jamboree that I could do without.   And don`t get me started on Christmas - please.......