How quickly this October has come and gone! Barely a memory ago, it was summer, and we took the train home along the beach in the sunshine. But before long jumpers came out of the cupboard, then coats, then hats. Suddenly the ground is frosty of a morning, I wake up in darkness, and I return home in darkness. The house is empty and cold, and Hallowe’en looms.

If the past is anything to go by, the next month will bring vacant, lonely feelings, feelings of disconnection from the world. I’ll write, but never finish anything I start. And November will pass in a blur, much October has before it.

But then it will be December, a more homely month. The house will be warm again, and light, and will smell of casserole and mince pies.

I never did get on with November.