The Halloween Blog

Saturday was party night as Mrs B and I went over to Windsor to see my sister and her tribe. The kids were all setup to play Halloween party games so it was only polite that I should join in, unfortunately after I thrashed them at eating the donut off the string game, I was banned from further competition - so much for teaching under 10's the concept of defeat. It was just as well though as I did not fancy half drowning myself in an effort to eat health food. (I thought apples were for eating, not bathing with). My sister then decided to play around with the formula for the flour and sweet game, with the type of meddling that would not appear out of place amongst the constant changes that are happening with the qualifying format for Formula 1. Instead of having one flour mound with a sweet in the middle and 4 half-crazed kids (Looking like over indulgent coke addicts ready to snort the white lines down the middle of a road) carving great swathes out of the flour in an effort to force one of the others into toppling the sweet from its lofty position. This version has the great advantage of taking only minutes, my sister, bless her, had the bright idea of spinning it out. So out came 4 flour mounds, one for each kid (note none for me), along with instructions to take it in turns cutting away at their own flour heap, the winner being the child that has the last sweet still in place. What my sister had failed to take into account is the ability for small kids to shave minute particles of flour on each go, particularly when their bedtime is looming. As you can imagine, this version took hours and everyone, including the kids, had lost interest in the result, long before the end.

Having been out celebrating Halloween on Saturday night I completely forgot that Monday was actually the night that all the little tykes around our way chose to come visiting, threatening grievous bodily harm on anyone foolish enough not to supply them with enough sugar to keep them climbing the walls of their parents’ house for a good week or so. In general, I’m all for it, the more E numbers you can get into the little buggers the less opportunities and inclination their parents will have to produce more of the little ASBO candidates for future years. Moreover, it’s a particularly good excuse to stock pile enough sweets to see me through to Christmas. Unfortunately, this year I found myself alone in the house (Mrs B taking the sensible precaution of working extra late) with an empty candy jar and two missing cats. It was like a scene out of a bad Zombie movie (Before any one says, all Zombie movies are bad, I recommend you see "Shaun of the Dead") as out of control little people wondered aimlessly around the streets.

I tried the trick of hiding under the kitchen table with the house lights out, but the constant knocking and cackling (plus the discovery that the cats had got there first and were in no mood to share this particular bolt hole) eventually drove me out of the house and off to the health club for a circuit session (aside 1). My body has still not got over it. Next year I shall try a different tack and invest in a pair of finest quality earmuffs while I hunker down and attempt to eat my own body weight in sweets. This just leaves the problem of avoiding the very same bunch of snotty nosed Stepford children, for the next week, only they are now hyper on candy and demanding £20 for the Guy (aside 2)
, well that's inflation for you.
If you think this might be you, please come and collect your broom ASAP

Air-hockey disaster
Shock news, Mrs B finally beat me at Air-Hockey, on the table I bought for her last Christmas, how ungrateful can you get. While Mrs B has undoubtedly improved her skills over the course of the year, I felt robbed, especially when seconds after she declared it illegal to hit an airborne puck she scored from this very manoeuver and conveniently forgot about her new rule. To make matters worse, a short time later one of Mrs B’s shots leapt over the side of the table deflected off a chair and into my goal. Clearly, this was not going to be my day. All that was left to do was sulk for 24 hours and work out how to get rid of the damn thing, just as Mrs B has taken a real shine to it. I think my best bet is to leave the back doors open one night and claim the table legged it….

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(1) Foolishly I still had the roof down on the Mini, which meant I could not afford to stop and was forced to roar out of the garage leaving in my wake a mixture of enraged toddlers clutching their bags of swag and fearful parents counting up the number of sleepless nights their little treasures were collecting towards. (Return to text)

You have got to hope that they look after their second set of teeth a bit better........






























(2) Which will probably turn out to be some poor trussed up neighbor, who neither had the sweets or sense to get out while he still could. There but for the grace of a fast getaway car, could have been me. (Return to text)