Ah, Hallow'een. Hedda and Titus have been looking forward to it for weeks. To what, exactly? The lack of Americans in the vicinity means that opinion is very much divided about this most commercial of festivals. Like Marmite, you either love it or you hate it. We did a quick tour of the cul-de-sac with our witch and vampire. They'd been primed to recite a little rhyme, sadly made all the more unintelligible by Titus' draculan false teeth. Still, they got a whole bag of sweets at the first house. At the second house (and actually the last - they lost their nerve after this), there was much barking from the repressed Alsatians, then the somewhat bemused neighbour, who probably hasn't been near a gummi bear for several decades, offered a single - and very fine - apple. We got the distinct feeling that only the weird foreign family was out trick or treating and retreated. Once home though, we realised that we had simply started too early. Since then the doorbell has been ringing every ten minutes and Titus is being kept busy giving the contents of our larder to those who dare to approach our hallowed portals. The sweets ran out an hour ago, so we're down to onions, cereal left over from Belgium that nobody wants any more, and sesame seeds. That should cement our strange reputation here for at least the next five years.
Still on the subject of commercial festivals, I finally came out of the closet a few weeks back and admitted to my family that I hate Christmas. Of course this news was greeted with a chorus of boo and Scrooge and bah humbug Mummy. But I felt glad to have come clean; not that it will change anything. I find it hard to explain exactly why I detest the festive season, but it has something to do with the weight of expectation from various quarters, which descends on me around the end of November and doesn't really go again until I am sweeping up the needles from the discarded Christmas tree on January 7th. Throw into the equation CG's birthday on January 4th too, an awkward date for a birthday if ever there was one - not that he can help it, poor thing. He's usually very noble about things not getting there on time, or people forgetting him as they're still digesting turkey sandwiches and nursing hangovers. Just don't mention the Dresden china Napoleon bust that I ordered at huge expense from Canada last year. It didn't arrive on time, and when it did he (CG, not Napoleon) was nursing a huge hangover, and hated the thing as soon it poked its stupid china tricorn hat out of the bubblewrap. The ensuing day was spent under a dark, sulking cloud of resentful disappointment. This year, he's ordering his own stuff on line! And I shall get him nasal hair trimmers as a frivolous extra.
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