Half-term

Autumn half term is a magical time. We have the autumn colours and the short, damp, misty, musty days, then we get an overnight frost and a deep, blue-sky day. We had it all in a week. Now we have floods.

The magic also stems from the strange festivals we keep, such as Halloween and good old Guy Fawkes Night, which is November 5th. If you are not British this may mean nothing to you. Basically, we celebrate the horrible execution of a Catholic terrorist who, with his 17th century chums, tried to blow up Westminster during the Royal Opening of Parliament by King James the First (of England; the Sixth of Scotland). He was horribly tortured etc. and burned as well. So we set off fireworks and burn effigies of the Guy. Of course, its all good clean fun, since he was really a Spaniard named Guido. The fireworks get bigger, scarier and more dangerous every year, but only a few thousand people are injured by fireworks each year, so no problem there.

The upshot is that the Stevenson's prefer Halloween, which is bad for your teeth but generally safer and more interactive. This year the grand kids came up and we all went Trick or Treating. The local kids went out in large armies, flanked by troops of parents and some households ran out of sweets quite early on.

We spent quite a lot of effort on decorating the house, which was great fun. Dan went out as a Viking, Thea was a beautiful corpse and Jake was a pirate.