31st October

It rained really heavily last night- even sleeping on my good ear I could still hear it because I’m right up in the roof space. I should have taken Julia up on the earplugs after all!

I’ve had a letter from Kirklees council saying that they have been made aware that I no longer live in my house and so will have to take me off the electoral register if I don’t contact them within 14 days of the date of their letter (24th October)

I obviously want to keep my right to vote so I rang them this morning and they were very helpful, considering that I currently don’t have a home/permanent address and that my post etc is going to Will in Scotland! They’ve emailed some forms to me that I need to print off, fill in and email back; overseas proxy voting forms. I went to the library today to print them off but it’s shut all day. It’s open tomorrow so I’ll try again then. I need to get a wriggle on seen as there’s going to be an election on 12th December! Least said about that and the B word the better!

Today is of course Hallowe’en. It’s not something I have ever celebrated and we didn’t do “trick or treat” when the boys were little either. I’m not a fan of scarey things and masks. I only remember dressing up for Hallowe’en once. I was a student nurse at Airedale and there was a party in the aforementioned central facilities. I went as a cat! But the star of the show was Frances (the highlighter) who went as a mummy, dressed head to toe in crepe bandages! I wonder where they came from??? Four us (I think Frances, Tjarda, Maxine and me) recreated the iconic image from Bohemian Rhapsody, with the four heads and the shadow behind. Great photo. What fun! 🙂

Anyway, as I was walking back from the library I could hear some fabulous drumming coming from the direction of the main street in Vendôme. So I went to investigate. There were so many people on the precinct- from little tots to Mums and Dads- all dressed up in scarey guises! They followed the drum band over the bridge to the park and then continued to another main square in the town. The band were brilliant! I saw another band like this in Glasgow a while ago too. All percussion. You can’t help but move to the beat. Today I looked across the crowd to see a rather frail old gentleman dancing along. He was loving it- and really moving to the beat! All his aches and pains momentarily forgotten:)

A lot of the shops were trimmed up for Hallowe’en too and children were running in and out of shops with little buckets collecting sweets from the shop owners. Very cute 🙂

No salsa tonight. But definitely Lindy Hop next week.

Bonne nuit 🙂