Happy October!

Happy October, my dear patient S&P-brains.

I hope you are all enjoying your Autumn, decorating and costuming and haunting, leading up to the grandest night of our year on the 31st.

I've been enjoying mine, certainly. I've had more time to enjoy everything about Hallowe'en, everything about October and Fall itself, than ever before. I've been able to breathe in the changing weather, listen to my favorite spooky music, even watch so many Hallowe'en-related movies and specials on TV (and there seems to me to be a lot more this year than ever, although I imagine that's merely because I've had more time to notice).

On the Big Night, I will be with family, enjoying some beloved family traditions, and just revelling in the holiday as we all should, each in our own way.

I hope you will be celebrating exactly as you want to, need to, this year. I hope you never feel like you've missed Hallowe'en, like you've somehow let Hallowe'en down, or cheated yourself out of fully embracing it.

Carve pumpkins, hang skeletons, make costumes, do it all! Start now, don't wait until the 31st. Celebrate everything Hallowe'en means to you for the next few weeks! You can make Hallowe'en last far longer than just one night.

In fact, I believe one of the main reasons I opened this humble little pub was to provide -- for myself and anyone who was lucky enough to wander in -- a year-round Hallowe'en experience. Not, obviously, a literal trick-or-treating, jack o'lantern carving Hallowe'en but the feeling, the magic of Hallowe'en every night of the year.

I have tried to do that anyway.

I suppose I have not succeeded in that endeavor, certainly not in the last three or four years, since (obviously) I have been so absent and in fact simply gone from the S&P the entire time, and for that I... well, I don't really apologize -- life is what it is -- but I do wish to thank you, to tell you how deeply I appreciate every single one of you, for being patient and supportive.

For simply being Autumn People.

I hope you all have a wonderful, spookiful, screamiful but above all meaningful Hallowe'en.

I plan on it.

Now... let's once again shake the dust from the rafters of this empty place and shout our traditional slogan... raise your drinks... ready...?

DUMDUMSHREKPOP!!!