The world from my window

It's Samhain, one of the most important festivals of the pagan year, and I'm up with the sunrise on the hill, hugging a tree, my face buried in the soft lichen enveloping its trunk, before looking out across the valley towards the sea. There's no-one about and the air is still and clear. There are fairies up on this hill, although I've not encountered one as yet. However, it's the best place and time to breathe in the freshness, ever so deeply, and commune with nature. Samhain is the highest holy day of witches. I'm a complete novice when it comes to witchery but I can relate to it far better than I can to Halloween, with its supermarket costumes and gummy sweets and cruel tricks on people who have the audacity not to see the cute side of children at their door demanding treats with menaces.  Mind you, I do like the effect a lit pumpkin can have on a dark night. And that's the point about Samhain. It's about passing from the light into the dar...

There is a shovel waiting on the upstairs balcony, ready to deal with our latest visitor. It's not for my big brother, although I must admit that, at times when I was younger, I could quite happily have hit him on the head with a garden implement, preferably something pronged. No, our latest visitor emerged one night not long after a small white cat appeared mewing in the garden, closely followed by a bat. With Doctor Seuss timing, something that rhymes with mat suddenly appeared in the vine overhead. And it was not a hat. I could cope with the edible dormice in the roof. They have an interesting and noble history (they were once eaten on sticks by ancient Romans). And even ordinary mice I can put up with. But. Not. A. Rat. There it was, looking down on the family gathering on the outside terrace with cold, beady eyes. And then, once we'd spotted it, it shot off, like the proverbial rat up a drainpipe, although it found its way up by shinning up a pillar...