And as the last of the fake cobweb spray blows away in the wind and the shops sell off their unwanted black and orange tat at half price, the air grows colder with the hint of what is next to come.
Don't worry, I ainten't talking about Christmas, or even Yule, Winter Solstice, or any of the other end of year festivities, oh no.
In fact, what I'm talking about is a once in a life time celebration and there are only nineteen days left and counting.
I am getting excited about it, and being ever hopeful despite normally having as much luck as a whelk in a supernova, but a part of me can't quite believe it's going to happen.
If you haven't figured out yet what I'm banging on about, it's my birthday on the twenty-second, and against many odds I'm going to be forty years old.
There are two main reasons I'm mentioning this (a lot) and the main one is that last year I didn't remind anybody about the day and of course, hardly anybody remembered. Along with that, the ex-partner-in-crime, or any of my other friends for that matter, even bothered to ask me if I was planning on doing anything on the day and so nothing happened.
I tried to pretend I was happy with a last minute drink at my local and a Chinese take-away*, but without a card from any of my close friends I felt pretty miserable.
The second is that I can't believe I'm going to be forty. I mean, I was sort of expecting it, and I turned thirty with barely a whimper as I felt thirty, but I don't feel forty.
I'm not worried about being forty and I'm not panicking about 'getting old', but I really, honestly don't feel that I can be forty.
I only turned thirty a couple of years ago or so it seems, so how has all this extra time snuck up on me?
If time keeps playing stunts like this, I'm going to be fifty before I know it, and probably only just when I've finally adjusted to being forty, if I ever do.
I'd hate to be back in my teens or twenties again as I never got the hang of being a teenager, and I never felt happy in my body until my late twenties, and the only time I've ever felt comfortable with being me has been in my thirties.
And they're going to be over in nineteen days and counting.
Also, I don't think I've done a lot of the things I'm 'supposed to have done before I'm forty', and I have just over a fortnight to do them in.
So bearing that in mind, what my darling readers, do you reckon I should 'Do Before I'm Forty'?
Answers in the usual place sil vous plait.

*I do seriously enjoy a Chinese take-away, and if anybody wants to get me one for my birthday I won't say no, but I would have preferred it if it hadn't been bought because nothing else had been planned, if you know what I mean.
PS. Anybody who answers 'Me!' or suggests anything smutty will have their comments edited so that they look like a complete prat, akay?
*cough*Scaryduck*cough*
PPS. No Choose-O today as I have something planned already.