Daylight wasting

Is that the opposite of daylight saving? Daylight is certainly increasingly fleeting. The clocks have just gone back, and it's dark when I come home from work now (although for now still light in the a.m.). I am struggling to resign myself to the fact that it will be like this for the rest of the year (and a bit of next year too). Meanwhile, all I hear from NZ are stories of the sunniest Labour Weekend in living memory.

Fitting, then, that it's almost Hallowe'en - which marks the end of the light half and the beginning of the dark half of the year. Hallowe'en is a big deal here (well it is a celtic festival - A took some convincing on that one, he was sure it was invented in America). In Scotland, people go guising rather than trick-or-treating, dooking for apples is almost obligatory, and many other messy food games are involved (I'll give you the full update after our themed team meeting at work on Friday - I'm busy carving turnips as we speak).

Speaking of Scottish festivals, I was excited today to receive my two free tickets to Edinburgh's Hogmanay, a big street party on New Year's Eve (or Hogmanay, as it's properly called). They allocate tickets by ballot in October each year. It promises the world's biggest Auld Lang Syne, not sure what else though - probably a serious chill to the bones and lots of general revelry to distract merrymakers from the cold.

We just received a copy of our wedding video - lovingly crafted by Richard Foy at Propellerhead Productions (aka his living room). I can't believe it was almost a year ago. Richard did a great job (not too long, not too much to cringe about, some nice touches with titles, music & graphics), and it was so nice to see faces and hear voices that we hadn't seen/heard for so long.