Darker nights

I am amused to find that the last time I wrote, we were having a scorching time in deepest summer.  We are now plunged into the season of frosts, road-gritters and annoying head colds.  The lanes are made slippery with fallen leaves and the apples are succumbing to the press, producing glorious sweet sticky apple juice that the children guzzle greedily, making sweet sticky cheeks. 

Mr Weaver, Sparkhayes’ proprietor, survived his sixtieth birthday celebration, with most of the village taking part in a very jolly stroll around the three pubs we are blessed with, listening to live music in each and partaking in the liquid refreshments on offer.  A good time was had by all.  As the weather has turned, so Phil has been able to have a rest from the ride-on mower, but we’re all hoping the Porlock rail project will keep him active through the winter.
 
We are now in the midst of half term and looking forward with much excitement to Halloween tomorrow night.  I seem to be one of very few people who never went trick or treating as a child.  I wasn’t too sure about the idea of turning up at stranger’s houses and asking for sweets, I think I was also rather afraid of receiving a trick..!  Maybe my fears weren’t all that irrational, I was shocked to see advice on a recent trip beyond my usual boundaries, which warned children that their sweets might in fact be drugs, given out as some sick kind of trick by deranged individuals. 

Thankfully Porlock is quite the best and safest place to go trick or treating.  Part of the beauty of it is that we don’t actually knock on stranger’s doors, the doors belong to people we have spoken to or at least nodded at almost every day when we pass through the village.  They are people who we have got to know through several years of trick or treating and every Porlock child knows the best houses to go to.  The children are very good at respecting the rules – only knock at doors that are decorated with pumpkins and which look relatively inviting.  The residents that take part are equally good at playing their part, often with incredibly generous and well thought-out treats, funny costumes and bucketfuls of patience.  It has become a treat for me to make the annual excursion and to see the joy it brings.  It’s yet another reason to love this quirky, happy village.

I know many of you will disapprove, but I am typing this while munching a *gasp* mince pie… ssshhh!