Halloween fun

Wednesday 31st October

It has been a tense couple of days if you are under 10 wondering if the adults around you will have recovered themselves enough for the long awaited Halloween.  Fortunately, with life resuming a more normal ebb and flow (to the background hum of generators at least), Halloween was declared ON.

The fun began at school with a Halloween parade and parties all afternoon.  The Summers were represented by a spooky witch and a vampire but local etiquette says anything goes - including a cheese ball!  The party games were a success and seemed to include one which we have yet to try at home - race to dress a mummy.

As darkness fell, one now transformed skeleton and one vampire, joined one panda, one caterina, one rock chick, one spider man and one very tiny whale to trick and treat.  Lantern lit and loot sacks in hand the children, accompanied by a few watchful adults (thank you guests R&G), toured from house to house in a mostly loud but otherwise not very scary fashion to collect candy, candy and more candy.  The adults were fortified by a beverage or two along the way.  We thought we had limited proceedings to a fairly manageable tour but that was before we took on the "haunted" house......

I fear that the occupant of the rather large house at the end of an even longer drive had not had the "pleasure" of trick and treaters for some many years.  However, although surprised, she was determined to oblige.  The English accent proved the first downfall and we were taken on tour of her artwork, Drury Lane original 18th century flyer, and Lady Hamilton original china (although it took several pairs of hands to rescue the plates as they fell domino style from the dresser).  The children safely ushered back outside we were given a tour of the portraits of the US ancestors - again many pairs of hands were needed to catch the toppling easels.  There followed a moment when she hid in the kitchen wing hoping we would disappear, and we wondered if we should, but ginger nut biscuits followed.  A hasty retreat beaten, a sub-team were forced to return after recusing the escaped dog and G and g were then persuaded to fill individual sacks for the children with various traditional goodies. That is the last time I follow the locals on a mad cap scheme.

All in all though a fun and harmless holiday and, as expected, enough candy now in the house to last until Christmas.