The Night Watch

The usual problem the Halloween lanterns face is that gusty breezes will blow them out, but the night was relatively wind-free around Swanvale Halt. However it was wet, and so the flickering flames faced the greater danger of being extinguished that way. After toasting the dead in the churchyard as usual, I left this little fellow to do his work against the church wall under the protecting arm of a headstone cross, so we will see how long his light lasted.

Groups of little witches and other horrors made their way up and down the hill between about 6 and 7pm, but I only had two children and their parents come to visit me slightly later, when I thought everyone had gone home. Up in Leeds, Professor Purplepen had more than twenty in seven groups, while Dr FireFace in Oxford claimed a hundred. That's a lot of chocolate. 

Interestingly I have pagan friends who are starting to rail against the fact that their serious religious festival of Samhain has been commercialised and turned into a camp pumpkin-and-spookfest. They'd like to detach Samhain from Halloween in the same way many Christians would like to separate Halloween from All Hallowtide. I think they're looking through the wrong end of the telescope a bit, but there you go.