Dartmoor at Dusk on All Hallows' Eve
It couldn't have been timed better, for just as the night was closing over the moor the mist came up from the valley below, and wispy grey fingers reached out and enveloped everything in its path. It seemed as I walked back home the entire village and everything around me had disappeared. Spooky, and just right for Halloween.
It was not too eerie for long though, for shortly after six o'clock the Trick or Treaters came calling, and of course I had my bag of sweets ready.
Cheeky Tom and brother George
Where Have all the Hedgehogs Gone? Wherever they are they are certainly not here. Maybe it's because at approximately 500 metres, or c1200 feet above sea level we are too high for their habitat. A couple of years ago I took George and Tom to Mrs Tiggywinkle's Hedgehog Sanctuary where my name had been put on a waiting list to 'Adopt a Hedgehog.'
At last, after a wait of about three months, the great day came, and Tom, George and I set forth to collect our hedgehog, complete with an old baby blanket in a cardboard box in the car boot. We called our new arrival "Pickles" - it was meant to be "Prickles" (very original!) but Thomas had a slight lisp and couldn't pronounce the R - and we arrived home and released Pickles into the garden. Off he went, scurrying into the undergrowth and he was never to be seen again - ever. After reading up on hedgehogs I was amazed to learn that they can walk up to three miles in their nocturnal ramblings, so maybe Pickles went AWOL in search of a Mrs Pickles and wandered down the hill to the neighbouring village.
I mention hedgehogs as the next big event for us is Bonfire or Guy Fawkes Night on 5th November - not I hasten to add, do we intend to roast a hedgehog! Quite the opposite. For the last few weeks we have been gathering wood and now we have a respectable pile on the village green, complete with the inevitable guy. In these days of Health and Safety everything is very controlled, from checking the bonfire for hedgehogs to a nominated Responsible Person to Let Off the Fireworks. Apart from the fire to keep the adults warm there will be a spicy punch to drink, then as the blaze is reduced to glowing embers, there will be a strategic retreat to the pub for a fish 'n chips supper.
But if the weather is anything like it has been over this past week, it will not be cold.
It is said that while the rest of the world has a 'climate', we Brits have 'weather,' and the weather is indeed a national topic of conversation, especially recently for it has been exceptionally warm for November. Last week-end I went across the road from my house, over the stile, and down a bridle path, and into a large field. At the end of the field there are three or four enormous holly trees laden with a blaze of orangey red berries, and the temperature must have been over 20 degrees in the November sun. The trees were truly a magnificent sight, and if the old wives' tale that masses of holly berries on the trees means that we are in for a hard cold winter, then we had better start stoking up the fires already. I won't mind, because I shall be Down Under, sitting on the verandah having just come up from the beach after my swim in the balmy waters of the Pacific ocean, sipping my chilled white wine, and asking my son-in-law to throw another prawn (and Aussies, I do NOT mean an Englishman!!) on the barbie, please.
In the meanwhile, Remember, Remember the fifth of November
The gunpowder treason and plot ...
and the plot still resonates today as there is the ritual searching of the cellars of the Houses of Parliament before each state opening of Parliament by the Queen.
Until next week when we shall be commemorating Remembrance Day have a safe Fifth of November.
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