More Halloween and the Other Festival

A few short musings on matters seasonal:

This blog post announcing the results of a Halloween pumpkin carving contest caught my eye; further evidence of the fascination that the US has with this particular festival and the effort that they put into celebrating it.

I was working late on Halloween; by the time I was home all of the Trick and Treaters had gone, so I am still without my first proper Halloween in the US.

It is still early November, but already I find Christmas creeping up on me. I heard a Carol in a book-shop yesterday and my early morning coffee was served in a red and white festive mug. Please… wait until December arrives or at least until Thanksgiving has come and gone.

Open All Hours

For the last few days, I have been working UK hours. This has involved getting to work around 11pm and working through the wee small hours. Lunch is therefore taken about 4-5am in the morning. There is only one place that is open close to the office at those hours which serves meals. Denny’s is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I can think of two reasons to eat at Denny’s and those are its opening hours and that it is possible to find a worse cup of coffee. On the second day of these hours, despite the hour I had a lunch meal. I ate a burger, but frankly there was more cereal in that meal than I have in my regular breakfast bowl.

Mind you in the UK, I can think of no where that would be open to serve food at those hours; apart from Motorway service stations. Denny’s food may be indifferent, but it is Michelin star compared to UK service station food.

Working these hours also made me realize how early Starbucks opens; I was able to buy coffee on the way back from my mid-work period meal and I was not getting to the store as it opened.

Fortunately, for the rest of the week I shall be starting at 6am and should be back to my normal schedule next week.