Spooky

Today

The trick or treaters have been out in force tonight. Paul and I are very relaxed about it. The kids in the village are pretty harmless and many make quite an effort to dress up.

I usually provide some little items, some taken from the previous Christmas's unwanted stocking fillers, others the more unusual sweets with appealing names like "toxic waste" or "spray candy". Paul always dons a horrific mask to terrify the children, who then address him by name "good evening, Mr B, trick or treat?".

The kids seems to love our treats which we offer them by way of lucky dip. "Wow, yours is the best house; we only get sweets normally. Are you rich?" And they never ask for money.

I forgot one year; Paul was working and the weather was foul. That didn't stop the young 'uns turning up. "So sorry," I said "I haven't got anything; you'll have to do your worst." Most were utterly taken aback and had failed to provide for this eventuality. One pair of sisters had and sprayed me with silly string. Only the weather was so bad that it blew back all over them.

In My Day

Hallowe'en was an unknown feast to us as children. We heard about it and, as I was easily spooked child, I probably had a few scary moments. Later, when I was at college and we were all into seances and Ouija boards, the subject was canvassed more often.

One year, when I was at college in Worthing, we decided to celebrate in a big way. Not far from Worthing is Chanctonbury Ring. We spent time in the pub in Findon spooking ourselves with tales of the witches coven that meets there and how, if you walk around the ring widdershins seven times the Devil will appear.

Then we donned our strongest shoes and set off, intending to arrive at midnight. Chanctonbury Ring is a ring of trees on a quite substantial hill. Unlike its neighbour the milder Cissbury Ring which has a path to the top, there was no discernable way to get to the ring. It was pitch black and we had trusted to our eyesight becoming acclimatised and had brought no torches. Anyway,we didn't want to forewarn the witches. We struggled with barbed wire, cowpats, brambles and lashing saplings. Unlike the Blair Witch Project, it was more scratchy than spooky and we soon lost all sense of which way was uphill, let alone find the witches. I think we probably all imagined that we'd be led by the sight of a huge fire with silhouettes of naked dancing witches. I don't think we had a clue as to what to do if we actually found this event.

I also don't know who it was who suggested that we abandon the project. But we all thankfully struggled back to the road and back to my flat where my domesticated flatmate had made parkin and where we had lots of cider.

All of which makes a bit of silly string seem, well, silly.

Dive Bomb

Today

The other night I made the mistake of turning on the bedroom light without first of all shutting the curtains. In a very short space of time the room was filled with flying things. They batted about the room and all looked very nasty.

There are some insects which just have to die. Wasps, crane flies, bluebottles and, of course, mosquitoes. Reluctant to have our newly painted walls stippled with squashed corpses, we sprayed the room liberally with toxins. This gave us an insect-free night, although we did have to check the bed for dead bodies first.

In My Day

The bedroom I slept in as a child was in the basement and had a window, half subterranean, that looked into the area. There was no easy access to this space and it quickly became clogged with dead leaves, paper and other slimy rubbish. From time to time Daddy would clamber in and sweep up and cover everything else with Jeyes Fluid. I can remember that horrible carbolic smell.

In the Summer, opening my window after dark was a foolish action as the mosquitoes that bred in the usually full drain would visit me to feast on my young blood. In the dark they would whine like approaching dive bombers. Signal to put my light on and start the search and destroy mission.

This didn't stop my being bitten and having a nasty allergic reaction to their bites.

When I complained to my parents they had two solutions. One was to pour paraffin into the drain itself. This, according to Daddy, would stop the creatures from breeding as the larvae couldn't stick their little probosces into the air through the slippery paraffin. The other was dose my bedroom, using the "Flit Spray". This contained DDT which, as we now know, is more toxic than anything contained in a can of "Raid".

What I want to know is, why do mosquitoes just bite some people and not others? And why me?