Witch is best?

In Great Britain, the whole ‘halloween being a big deal’ thing is a phenomenon that certainly wasn’t present during my own childhood. I’m happy to jump onto this particular bandwagon though, as it is a relatively inexpensive holiday that involves leftover sweets (yummy) and horror-related dressing up (I am particularly fond of the zombie genre of cinema and may well be pulling out ‘Dawn of the Dead‘ for late night viewing tonight. Or maybe some Scooby-Doo, haven’t decided yet).

Halloween is also a winner as it’s a great way to celebrate all the colours of autumn…

Colour that includes wonderful pumpkins (if you are anywhere near the New Forest at this time of year, Fairweather’s in Beaulieu have an amazing range and display)…

The only down side to halloween these days is that every supermarket and discount store has spooky costumes for £5 a pop, resulting in less and less of a need to get out the pinking shears and bin liners to fashion up home-made creations (oh, and the tomato ketchup of course). There’s nothing quite like a hand-crafted ghoul to gladden the heart.

Back in the olden days when I was a child, the BIG deal at this time of year was Guy Fawkes night on November 5th. This was great – it involved burning human effigies on bonfires and setting off fireworks! Building up to the day would be a pre-amble of touting your ‘guy’ on street corners and asking strangers for a ‘penny for the guy’ (but woe betitide anyone who only gave you a penny). These ‘guys’ were always home-made, normally involved your Dad’s old trousers and jumpers stuffed with leaves for the body, a papier-mâchéd balloon painted for the face, then added accessories like school cap/beret, school tie, glasses (from weakest, spectacle-wearing child in the group – if lucky to be returned before going on fire). Happy days. I’m sure it won’t be long before supermarkets sell ready-made guys, too!

To be honest back then (as now) most people are a bit sketchy on the whole Guy Fawkes story, and I can’t help but feel that if a similar stuation happened today the main protaginist would more likely be lauded as a hero than an evil villain to be burnt on a fire. But hey-ho, any excuse for a great big bommie, some hot parsnip soup and Yorkshire parkin to go with. Can’t wait.