Hallowe'en

Hallowe'en has never been a really major part of my life: when I was small, I don't remember Trick or Treating being something which was done, much, and then when I was 10 we moved to Somerset and our house was on a dangerous road, (and very few children lived at that end of the village) so we never had anyone come to the door.

Now, however, I live on  a large housing estate and there are a lot of families with young children, so I get lots of children coming.

I did not dress up myself, but I admit that I did quite enjoy proffering my skull, and politely asking "Would you like an eyeball?"

The answer, mostly, was yes. The eyeballs went much faster than the skeletons or ghosts...

I do find it slightly odd, however, that so many people are apparently quite happy to let their children go out, after dark, to knock on strangers' doors, unsupervised. Of the 6 or 7 lots of children who knocked on my door, only 2 had an adult with them (One father was dressed up in full Count Dracula gear, which definitely gets him extra points!) I'm all for kids learning to be independent, but some of the unaccompanied children were very young - under 7, and I can't help but feel that at that age, even if they are not at any risk from the knocking on doors part of the evening, that when they are over excited and on a sugar high they are probably not stipping to think before (say) running across the road . . .

Oh well.

I also released several bookcrossing books over the weekend in celebrations of Neil Gaiman's proposed new tradition, All Hallow's Read.