Late Halloween

I’m back after a slightly enforced internet break. It’s a long story that I won’t bother you with, but I ran out of data to use and had to wait till this week before I could get online again. Who knew I used so much data? I think it was the podcasts for creative people that I discovered last month. Downloading them took more gigabytes than I thought. I must be more aware of that! I found myself missing the internet a bit, but I just about coped. I don’t think I had any withdrawal symptoms apart from the sleepless nights, fidgety hands, nervous tremors…..

So, because of my break, I’m late for Halloween, or Samhain as it’s called in Ireland, which comes from the Celtic name for the time that they celebrated the end of summer, the end of the year and the beginning of winter. The spirit world was very close at that time of year and people could easily wander into it, never to be seen again – or at least until Beltane (May Day) the following year. The spirits could also pass through into our world as well of course.

I had a couple of photos ready to go for Halloween, so although I know it’s a few days late, here they are.

This is my drawing of a lovely black cat with a pumpkin.

And here’s a spooky photo I’ve digitally altered of a graveyard.

I went for a walk here looking for conkers because they’re meant to keep spiders away (you should have seen the three huge ones I found over two weeks in September – eek! They were so big, I named them Goliath 1, 2 and 3. I caught them in a jam jar and put them outside.) But there weren’t any conkers. Plenty of shells laying around but no conkers. The squirrels must have had a good feast on them and stashed a lot for the winter.

While there, I found this hole in a tree.

What do you think lived in it? A small bird? A fairy? I’d love to know, but at the same time, it’s nice to have a mystery. If you have any thoughts – real or imaginary - I’d love to hear them.

Have a great weekend!