Here I am… just gone ten o’clock in the morning sitting at my desk. It is dark outside, the clouds are a uniform shade of grey. It is raining. The dogs are bored and eating Hob Nobs.

My knee has seized up. It is not only painful but bloody annoying. There are so many things I want to do today. To cap it all, the internet is going at a snail’s pace and giving me strange messages. When I tried to log on to Blog.co.uk I was told it wasn’t available. Even when the internet came back on and worked for everything else, Blog UK's pages would not load. Weird.

There is definitely something in the air at this time of the year. Our ancestors recognised it, marking it out with festivals of the dead in many cultures and many countries. But why a festival of the dead? What does it mean?

Have you ever really thought about those old fashioned turnip lanterns? Now that pumpkins are more readily available you don’t see them so often nowadays, and besides, they were hellish hard to carve. To get a swede or turnip big enough meant it had the texture of granite, and I can remember spending an entire day once just trying to scoop out the centre. Pumpkins are a doddle in comparison.

But by changing over to pumpkins we have lost the essential meaning of the Halloween lantern. For pumpkins grow above ground, and Swedes and turnips grow in the earth.

Thereby lies the symbolism. Things that are dead are buried; they lie in ground. We dig them up, carve faces on them, put lights in them. We give them life in other words. It’s quite appropriate for a festival where we are really celebrating the principles of life, death and regeneration/rebirth.

It’s very easy to miss these important symbols, particularly now that Halloween has become so commercialised. I love the festival, always have done, but it’s important not to lose track of its meaning.

There’s more to Halloween than sweets and egg throwing. The veil between this world, and the Otherworld (or otherworlds, depending on your point of view) is thinning out. We are almost between worlds – a very magical place to be.

Why this should be I really don’t know. Is it because there’s something inherent in the air at this time? Or is there some other reason? Something organic in the earth itself that triggers the shift?

I find it’s important this time of year to spend some time just thinking, being quiet and watchful. A bit like switching on the radio between programmes and waiting to see what comes on. Sometimes you can be very pleasantly surprised!