The Eve of St Agnes

In a couple of days, all being well, I move about a mile and a half, from Ashley Down (on top of Ashley Hill) to St Agnes (at the bottom). Confusingly, Bristol actually has two districts called St Agnes: mine is the one that abuts St Pauls.

When I turned over the October page of my Moomin calendar a few days ago, I was not surprised to find that it showed a tall thin house, rather more characterful than the one I'm moving to, but still, I like to think, its spiritual twin.



That Moomins calendar has been a kind of sortes virgilianae for me all year. In March, it weirdly predicted the onset of lockdown, toilet-roll hoarding and all:



Despite stocking up, by the following month, Moomintroll and Snufkin had been reduced to using the three-shells method - or at least to working out what it might be. (This didn't actually happen to me, but only thanks to my Brexit stockpile.)



And in May, when I was taking woodland long walks in Stoke Park and around Purdown (see entries from that time), Moomintroll similarly was hugging a tree, as if for comfort.



What will November and December bring? The only downside to being at the bottom of the hill is that my new house is right next to a river, and the Moomins don't have a great track record with flooding...