Boning up

It's still quite light when I set out for a preprandial walk, but the evenings are drawing in, so I continue briskly down the hill, past front yards which have been blossoming into bones, severed hands, and billowing ghosts since Thanksgiving Monday.

Above, low on the pale blue eastern sky, a phantom moon, not quite full, has made its debut.

Deeper into Fairfield, the fashion seems to be Hallowe'en lights: eaves, doorways and bushes lined with golden and orange bulbs.  A little more cheerful than the carnage uphill, I guess.

Turning west, I step quickly but carefully along the ancient sidewalk along Chapman.  People laden with groceries are vanishing into the houses.  I reach the blocks of Cook Street Village where the sidewalks are full of errand-runners and election placards.  We've just had our municipal elections and it's the eve of a snap provincial election, called by the premier (who heads the New Democratic Party) to take advantage of the fractious factions the provincial Conservative Party finds itself in these days.  There isn't actually a Conservative candidate in our riding any more; he was tossed out on his ear a couple of weeks ago, for indiscreet and rather racist social media remarks, made in his not-distant-enough youth.

The street is also lined with youthful volunteers for the Green Party, greeting me at each corner, and asking if I will be voting the next day.  I reply affably that this is my plan, and, to save time (theirs and mine), that I've done some reading and made my choice.  They wish me a pleasant evening.

And it is.  Lucy Maud Montgomery had Anne Shirley rhapsodize in Anne of Green Gables (chapter 16, if you're intrigued) that she was so glad to live in a world with Octobers.  

So am I, but the month is running out. 

As is the light.  Almost home, I look at the moon.  It's now as white as bone, three-dimensional and palpable against the darkening sky.