Autumn again, after all. So much for the recent heatwaves and the sunlight flooding the streets with such intensity that you could’ve believed summer had seared itself permanently into the stucco of the tenement houses, helping us pretend that the overpriced, over-diluted Aperol ordered at Betel was actually being sipped in Bergamo.

Fine. We’re back to the factory settings of the Polish landscape. If we chose the bleakest stretch of November for our Independence Day, when Mariah hasn’t yet started telling us in shopping malls that all she wants for Christmas is you, but the orange garlands of pumpkins and bats have already come down, then perhaps we simply like things grey. Neither black nor white. Which is why it’s actually quite nice that Halloween has somehow caught on in Poland – another excuse for a party before St Nicholas’ Day rolls around. Especially since we’re not entirely hopeless at celebrating death either: All Souls’ Day, Forefathers’ Eve. Though the forefathers seem to…