Halloween comes and goes in Lush Places, complete with spooky soundtrack

With November comes the fog and Lush Places becomes Slush Places once more.

It's muddy underfoot and the dog has a field day gobbling up all the sheep's poo and getting filthy on harvested ground.

But that's the way I like it.

Halloween is the day of days; bright, cheerful and sunny. Yet my portal into another world - the mirror in the village square where the ley lines cross - foretells of darker days ahead: red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning.

October, a rare month for boys. And for girls, too, Mr Bradbury.

“Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. They live inside the gift, know power, accept, and need not mention it. Why speak of time when you are Time, and shape the universal moments, as they pass, into warmth and action? How men envy and often hate these warm clocks, these wives, who know they will live forever.”

Imbibed with the power of the sisterhood and Samhain, I ponder on what to wear for the Halloween party in the pub, at which Ding Dong Daddy and I are doing the disco. I plump for an old favourite, a dark wig entwined with plastic snakes which transforms me instantly into Medusa. When I'm wearing this little number, just don't look into my eyes.

In the pub now and Ding Dong Daddy is doing a great impression of Uncle Fester without even putting on fancy dress. There's a pumpkin being sick on the doorstep, spiders and bats on the windows, ghouls and ghosts, slain schoolchildren, characters from horror films, my sister-in-law doing her chicken dance and then General Custer - he of the face carved out of Mount Rushmore - sporting a long black coat and an Edvard Munch Scream mask.

The Monster Mash is playing on the decks and then we break into a completely 0ff-the-cuff segue of Kid Rock and All Summer Long, the original and best Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd and then merging into Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon.

So proud of ourselves for this stroke of DJ genius, Ding Dong Daddy (shattered after a long Afro Celt Sound System recording session) and I give each other a high-five but our audience hasn't even noticed our musical magic, although they're quick to snigger loudly when we crash into Michael Jackson's Thriller too soon after Gene Pitney's and Marc Almond's Something Gotten Hold of My Heart.

Still, nothing prepares me for the sight of Mr Grigg, last seen back at base moaning he had nothing to wear. He emerges through the door clutching a pint and looking like the love child of The Grinch and Papa Lazarou from The League of Gentlemen.

 

The music flows, as does the wine and beer, until it's November 1st and All Souls Day. Unlike Halloween, it's misty, miserable and wet.

So, all the greetings of the season to you. I will leave you with this...

That's about it.

Love Maddie x