It's back. Just when you thought it was safe to venture outside, the Horror Hut has been resurrected!

For those dear readers who are new to this gripping tale, the background is this: Some weeks ago, Mrs Anubis Evans, fellow resident in this Land of the Twitching Curtains, pulled down her sulphurous yellow shed. I suspect it may have been the entrance to middle earth. Although seemingly of modest proportions, it took seven van loads to empty it. And then, it was no more. (The bravest among you can read this for yourself in the blogs for the 10th and the 28th August).

For a while the new vista in the village was interesting. I learned that Mrs Anubis Evans, despite her claims to be Lady of the Manor (hotly contest by several other hopefuls in the district) never throws anything out. She has several tyres which she uses as planters, also an empty vacuum cleaner and three toilets all now replendent with dahlias. And now, this very week, she and her family have been beavering away on a new Shed-Creation.

Lord alone knows where they got this latest shed from. It has been placed so awkwardly that if her husband, Hissing Sid, opens the door too quickly it'll go straight through the side of his greenhouse.

I seem to remember we had some great suggestions about the likely colour for this new shed, but, dear readers, Mrs Anubis Evans has surpassed even the most fanciful of these.

I kid you not, she's only gone and painted it in luminous paint. It now glows in the dark like some brooding undersea creature.

It's no good, I shall have to grow my hedge even higher to blot out the sight.

Well, here we are at the dark of the moon. Traditionally this was a time when bad influences were at work, and just about anything could happen. Hecate, that feared, crone-like goddess from the classical world was particularly associated with the ‘dark moon.’ Yet, despite all the bad publicity, Hecate is not, intrinsically a bad, or evil goddess.

Part of the problem lies in our concept of her, and where that concept came from. The idea of a completely evil deity was unknown before Christianity which took either over many heathen/pagan gods and turned them into saints (for example, the Celtic-Irish goddess Brigid became St Brigid) or turned them into aspects of Satan. For this latter procedure, think of Herne/Cernunnos with his horns, or Pan with his cloven hooves.

In the Ancient World, all deities were capable of great kindness and also of mischief, spite and virtually every other motive or emotion known to man. That’s what made them so accessible. You could do a deal with them. If one god appeared to dislike you, another might befriend you. At the very least, you had a chance of getting help from one of them. All the classical gods could and did both help and hinder mankind, having distinct dark and light sides to them.

What we learn at the dark of the moon is that our dark side is nothing to be feared, it is part of what we are. True, sometimes the dark side has to be controlled if we are to live decently in society and avoid prison or regular punch ups, but that’s also true of the light side, believe it or not. Being goody two shoes can make you just as much of a positive liability if that side of your nature is allowed to run out of control!

At the dark of the moon it’s a good time to examine ourselves honestly. We don’t have to tell anyone else what we find, just ourselves. Remember that all our character traits have a positive and a negative. So anger might be regarded as negative – but isn’t always. There are times when anger can be justified, or used to great advantage. (Christians out there might remember that Jesus was pretty angry when he threw over the money changers’ tables in the Temple.) Anger is only a liability when it lacks control and one becomes the sort of person liable to erupt in fury at the slightest provocation. Anger (or any other perceived character trait) itself isn’t the problem so much as the sort of leash we put on it.