Remembering November

Another afternoon of canvassing, walking the streets, knocking on doors, meeting more kind people, and more nutters. 

Especially startling is the man who insists the solution to all our problems is for everyone who doesn't work for a living to be taken out and shot. 

One bullet, straight through the head, then up to the crematorium with them, he says.  

I try to maintain my professional integrity by not disagreeing with him, while doing my level best not to appear to be agreeing.  They really don't pay me enough to have these conversations, I hear myself mutter when I finally manage to escape.

Another house has a large sign up, urging me to go away.  It says a 'Beautiful Person and An Old Goat Live Here.'  I knock, and am just about to give up when an elderly woman appears.  I desist from speculating whether she is the beauty or the goat (but can't help musing that she could be either) and get on with the job in hand.

The afternoon turns slowly from slate grey to black as dusk draws down the sky.  The smell of wood smoke cheers the damp air: autumn is finally with us, now, after October's Indian Summer. The trees are shedding, and crimson leaf shapes stick to the pavements.  

I remember a Guy Fawkes night of long ago, when the Bim and I and Anna-mouse still lived together.  In an act of minor rebellion I crept out of our house as the Bim was bathing Anna-m, to find the firework thrills of childhood. What a long, long time ago. 

Slowly the lights are lit, and I find that I am knocking on people's doors in the dark.  When they are opened, the light and warmth of the interiors rush out to greet me. 

After four long hours I turn the car towards home.  It is the first time I have stopped in a frenetic week.  I potter about, absorbed in the bittersweet peace of another Saturday night alone.