16

There’s no choice of which way to go, here… one route’s blocked by… what’s in here?  Let’s look.

Ha!  Boxes of Halloween stuff… skeletons and… fireworks they haven’t put away yet.

Why does the winter feel like one festival chasing the tail of another?

I mean… I know a lot of it is to help us navigate our way through the dark months… but do you think we’ve got it right?  Why don’t we have any festivals in the summer?

“We do, Dad – music festivals.”

Fair point.  But what else could we do?

Let’s design our own festival… roll these two dice.

“Which two dice?”

Haven’t you got any dice with you?

“Only one that I got from a cracker.”

Ok, good - roll this die twice... and design your own seasonal festival on the theme suggested.  First roll gives you the time of year:

1.       January – February

2.       March – April

3.       May – June

4.       July – August

5.       September – October

6.       November - December

“Okay… a three.  May to June?”

Right… early Summer.  Roll again.  Second roll gives you the festival theme:

1.       Life

2.       Death

3.       Love

4.       Civil Disobedience

5.       Light

6.       Food

“It’s a five… light?”

Okay… so, a festival of light in the Summer.  What could that be?

“Isn’t it most light in the Summer?  The Summer Solstice, perhaps?”

Ah, yes… maybe this won’t work then.[*]

What now?

What’s this sitting on the top of this pile of boxes?   Oh, it’s a TOKEN – embossed with a robin?

I wonder who left that there?  Did someone else drop it?

I guess a lot of people have passed through here today.

Well, we’d better go this way, then.

NO CHOICE

Through the only door you can get to?  (You can’t get past the boxes.)

[*] Have a go if you like.  Or work out which festivals are represented by 1-3, 6-5 and 5-2.