Halloweeeeeennn....

All Hallows Eve.
Growing up - it meant only one thing. Getting tortured by my one year older neighbour as his birthday treat. Little older and it was probably around the village, door knocking and carbide tins. BANG!

Wasn't me.

Going to Halloween? A strange request made sense of by Tarby Davenport. Event organiser. promoter, all round lovely person. Created a once a year, all things to all men, Halloween Fair in Thornham Woods. Acrobats amongst the trees, children's crafty things, bar, juggling and drumming, bar and brilliant bands into the night. Success caused it's demise, hoards of cars abandoned along dark lanes...

It's where I met Kate. Her dressed in a bowler hat and black cape. Lovely sparkly eyes. Me, dressed as a vicar. Cassock and surplus, black nails and eyeliner, wooden cross and dusty from hair to boots with flour. Wholemeal obviously.

Dancing like a loon. Badly.
By the time we went the following year, Kate was pregnant. Happy. Tired, left early to find we were blocked in. Blagged a cup of tea and a comfy sit down in a nearby cottage waiting for the roads to clear.

Years on - home with the kids and I remember the first invasion of trick or treaters. Alice answering the door to a masked face and screaming down the hallway. This year, carved her own pumpkin and went out amongst them. Robert on duty handing out the contents of the larder as his friends came calling.

And I had the chance to play for an hour or so with Them One Night Only Boys down in the town. Home to a woodburner warm house.

Lovely.