All Hallows Eve

Being on holiday last week meant that I didn't have to tolerate the banality of Halloween and trick-or-treating children. Theological objections aside the Americanisation that make this the second most commercially "holiday" after Christmas brings out the grumpy old man in me.

However, the break at Centerparcs made me realise what it is that really bothers me: it isn't the children, after all, but the adults that accompany them. Centerparcs got in on the act by putting on a Halloween treasure hunt - which we were happy to opt out of - but the spectacle of adults in fancy dress paying over the odds for pre-carved pumpkins seemed to be over-indulgent parenting at its worst.

Next day, the pumpkins were on a sale pile and the Christmas trees were up!

...But that was not exactly a surprise.

Last week we had 34 kids attend our church's Light Party. Not sure they didn't all get dragged into Halloween nonsense as well, but hopefully something we were able to share last week has stuck with them.

Red Squirrels

Just back from a really good family break at the Centerparcs resort in the Lake District. A good week to just do dad stuff - and only a couple of hours from home. I didn't realise that red squirrels were still around in significant numbers in the UK, but Cumbria has lots. The amount of effort that forest rangers etc. put into protecting red squirrels is very impressive - but the public are involved too - we were all invited to contact the squirrel-watch team if we saw any grey squirrels in Cumbria.

Autumn colours in the Lake District were fantastic.

Holiday came to a crashing end the minute we walked through the front door to a note complaining about our security system going off all week and an answerphone message asking us to conduct a funeral this week.

But if God is involved in making red squirrels (as well as the grey vermin types) then I guess He will sustain us as we take our places back on the bridge this week.