Even longer nights from now

After a good long sleep, Clare cooked us waffles for breakfast. Then she and Owain loaded the stewed crab apples with added cloves and lemons into a straining bag and hung it up for the juice to drip through. This produced three pints of liquor during the day, with a little extra bag squeezing at the end. Boiled up with a couple of pounds of sugar this produced nine jars of crab apple jelly. While this was cooking  I sieved the remaining fruit to produce several pounds of spicy apple puree, which can be used to spread on toast for breakfast, and baked into a pie. A wonderful return for the effort of harvesting and cooking.

Cousin Godfrey's funeral was this morning, and I was sorry not to be able to attend, but included prayers for him in saying the daily office. That's three family funerals in a row I've missed, two because of covid and one now because of the distance and time available for travel 

I got started on a sermon for tomorrow before we went to The Conway for a pub lunch: chicken curry for me, fish and chips for Clare and Owain and beer all round. Then we went into town, as Owain wanted to shop for a jacket in John Lewis. We then parted company and he went off to meet a friend, before returning to Bristol, so we had a drink in the cafeteria and then took the bus home. 

As we walked past a small joke cum novelty costume shop opposite the Castle, it was impossible to ignore the thirty yard queue of young people of student age outside, waiting to get into the store and be served. All were looking for something bizarre to wear for this Hallowe'en weekend. Astonishing to think how an old children's folk custom has developed into yet another consumer-fest of negligible value or interest. On arriving home we heard the news of a hundred and fifty four  young people dying in Seoul Korea, crushed in an excited crowd pressing through an alleyway in a night club district while out Halloween partying. It's a terrible tragedy, arising from the hype of consumerism - a new idolatry that consumes its worshippers by inflaming passions. A sad symptom of this passing age.

As the sun was setting I walked in the park for an hour and took some nice photos of a red and grey evening sky. After supper, I watched another double episode of Norwegian crimmie 'Wisting', then completed a sermon for tomorrow before turning the clocks back, and turning in too late to benefit from an extra hour in bed. At least I have a later start tomorrow morning, in any case.