FUEL RULES...

Behave!  All right?

...Or, Life's a Gas

Petrol Station Etiquette?  Familiar with this?  I thought I was.

I guess we are all up to speed with the General Rules.
It is for Safety Reasons, for example, that mobile phones and car engines should be switched off.
Ditto the whole Not Smoking thing.
It is General Good Manners that we don't bimble around the shop for half an hour if there is a queue a mile long waiting for fuel due to an erstwhile petrol shortage.
Unless I am missing something, I thought that was about it.
You park your car, you fill it up with fuel, and you pay.

Apparently I am wrong.

GHOULIES AND GHOSTIES AND LONG-LEGGED BEASTIES...

Or...It's Starting to Look a Lot Like Hallowe'en

 

"This is Hallowe'en, this is Hallowe'en...Pumpkins scream in the dead of night."
 
Danny Elfman and Tim Burton, eh?  You've gotta love 'em.

Okay, so it's not actually Hallowe'en yet.  But that doesn't mean I'm not preparing for it.  Because I am. 
In fact, I usually prepare for Hallowe'en from around November 1st.

DECORATING...

...Or, The Sometimes Interesting Effects of Paint Fumes

Yep, recently I have been 'decorating'.  I use the inverted commas purely to highlight the fact that it might not be everyone's idea of decorating.  No carefully selected ornaments, accent colours or wall art here.  Just everything out of the room, a couple of coats of paint on walls and woodwork, and everything back in the room. Sometimes even before the paint's dry.

It works for us.  Luckily our house is old and rustic and so can take this wanton approach.

The reasons for this re-decoration spurt ... (I say 'spurt' -  again, might not be everyone's idea of a spurt.  But two rooms in the space of a couple of months is a spurt as far as I'm concerned) ... Yes, the reasons for this spurt are manyfold.
And here (in No Particular Order, as the lovely Dermot O'Leary would have you believe) they are...