Halloweekend.

On Friday

We went to see Macbeth at the Covent Garden Odeon theatre. S and I pretended to dress up (I was wearing my gorgeous black lace dress, over which I had worn a red cardigan all day because I was at work and worried about being seen. Just about being seen. Does anyone else get that - being afraid of being seen, whilst at work? In public? Anywhere?).

On the way there I walked past a long, long line of people. It stretched out from the corner and went down the street past where the eye could see. It looked like a book signing line, or waiting for entry to a gig. The people were excited. They were buzzing and humming. There was a security guard telling them to keep the path clear. I walked down their length and found it eventually found the source - a costume shop with bright 'SALE' words all over the front window, mixed in with pumpkins and black witches' hats.

The movie had fantastic cinematography. The acting was good. They stuck to the original script and, by and large, delivered it well. There was also an attempt to provide more backstory that explained Macbeth and his Lady's madness, which I rather liked, but which most unfortunately wasn't properly integrated because of their faithfulness to the script. There were, however, a few very strange moments of madness, from Macbeth's timeslapse back-and-forth upright rocking in the moonlight to his comedic accusing cry of "Satan!"

The night was foggy.

On Saturday, Halloween

The day was foggy.

The All Blacks won. It was a fantastic game. There were about 8 of us in a family room, in front of a TV, yelling and wincing and crying "NONU!" and laughing about the commentator's observation of the concentration in Carter's nut brown eyes. But oh, it was a good game. You must know that.

Then we went home. We passed some ghouls and axe murderers, but I sort of felt the streets were oddly quiet. It may have been the fog. It left an invisible dampness on everything.

The night was foggy, and we sat up talking about how hard it is to make your life work sometimes and how it is that pot plants can die so easily.


On Sunday

M and I went to two talks for the London Month of the Dead at Brompton Cemetery. It is a beautiful cemetery, especially with the autumn leaves slowly falling from the trees. The day was foggy. There was a long avenue stretching down towards the chapel, lined with stones and statues and monuments along the flat ground.

The first talk was 'Stories in Stone,' where Marina Warner spoke about the British ghost writer M R James and fairy tales and mythology and Roger Luckhurst spoke about Yates' poem "All Soul's Night" and the cursed mummy that his friend Thomas Douglas Murray bought from Egypt. I was particularly interested in the idea of the power inanimate can have - something Warner spoke about in reference to the fairy tale 'The Singing Bone,' which I had coincidentally read just a few days before in Philip Pullman's collection of fairy tales. There is power in inanimate objects. We put it into them every day, and use them symbolically to talk about who we are.

The room was warm, and I was glad to get outside for a break between talks. We wandered around the headstones. There was a peculiar monument that reminded me of an Egyptian-esque alien temple I once created in a dream.

We saw a fox, too. He had a limp, and I fear he may not have been that well as he seemed to be slightly fearless, although he wasn't impressed by me. I filmed him so I could send it to my mother and to my little nephews and niece all the way back in NZ. I photographed him so I could put it on my Instragram and be like, 'Look at this handsome red fox. Yes. I saw this handsome red fox, and you did not, but you may now look at him by the grace of me.' He was smaller than Sigil, or Fabian, but much redder.

The second talk was about donations. An surgeon highlighted the importance of donating organs by talking about eyes. It's a way to live longer. Your cornea can help a 6 year old see, and a part of you can remain living and working for, oh, another century. I think it's important - someone else can use the parts of you you no longer need, because you are no longer there.

The second talk was about donating your body to medical science, which is interesting. I know from previous reading that you can never be quite sure where you'll end up or what your body will be used for. There was a very vocal woman in the crowd. I still don't know if she was opposed to it, for it, or just lonely.

The chapel was very hot by the second talk. I woke up on floor at the end of the first half, with the surgeon telling me to wiggle my toes. and then escorting me outside where M, who had popped out to get me some water, found me. I really must stop fainting.

The night was foggy and chill. Autumn leaves spun through it as we walked through the graveyard in the dark, towards the tall locked gates.