Warming Up

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The Herring family annual (it seems) Halloween party this afternoon and the whole family worked hard to make the place look decent and then make it look scary and also put out food and drinks for our friends.

Phoebe was particularly excited, making biscuits and planning games and hanging up decorations.

I was tasked with tidying up the garden and ended up attempting the Sisyphean task of scraping all the moss off of the cracks in the patio. I am not sure it looked much different when I had finished.

Ernie told his friends at the party that he was a record breaker and when there was some whiff of scepticism he showed them the certificate. So I don't know if that's good or bad. Am I bigging him up or teaching him to lie? Parenthood is hard, but I am glad that he now sees the positive side of the certificate.

It bothered him that the certificate did not include the date of the achievement, because the ones he saw online did. I heard him telling a friend that they had forgotten to put the date on and that's why he'd written it in himself. So yes, definitely teaching him to lie and con and profit from his fraud. But unless the world changes significantly he's going to need those skills.

All the preparation (though maybe not the partial moss removal - no one commented on it) was worthwhile. It was a fun afternoon. Catie and me had been to a party in London last night too, so it's been a real social whirl.

Sadly I ate too many sweets and Wotsits and I would pay for that later as sugar and junk food now have the same effect on me as booze (sadly not the fun bit, though I do get a little bit high when I eat a Twirl), but the hangover and the waking up in the middle of the night in a state of confusion, panic and unspecified guilt. Worth it? Absolutely not.

I can't believe I gave up alcohol before I gave up Wotsits, but I think it might be time to combat my sugar addiction. And then my phone addiction. And then I will just have my sex addiction left, though my body is doing all it can to cure that one, either due to removal or malfunction.

It's at time like these that I hope I have forty days to go rather than forty years. Imagine the Hell I will have to endure. Getting old really sucks. Why did no one warn me?

Well I am going to warn my many, many young readers and say "Eat all the Wotsits and Twirls and Haribo that you can right now, because one day your body will decide it wants actual real food."

I took Phoebe and her friend Trick or Treating up to the posh houses in Hitchin. Luckily for them they can eat three kilos of Moam without any ill effects (if anything it makes them higher than any drug known to man).

Some of the Tesla owners had made up for funding the awful plans of the most evil man on earth by setting their cars to Halloween mode. The cars came to life on their own and flashed and beeped as you passed. It was like living in the future. Also it let you know where the bell ends live if you had brought any eggs with you (today's youth seem only to care about the treat and not administering the tricks though, so don't think anyone had thought to bring them.

Marauding gangs of sugar fuelled kids stalked the misty Hitchin streets. Phoebe and friend tried to affect cool and take the mickey out of it all with dry sarcasm, but they still took all the sweets. And enjoyed the light shows and the projected singing pumpkins and said "Thank you" very politely to everyone. Already aware that their Halloween days are numbered though. The juxtaposition with the tiniest possible kids walking around wide-eyed in wonder and fear and confusion was vivid. It's impossible to spot the growth in your own children, apart from on days like this when you remember the Halloweens past.

We went home after an hours and I had more Wotsits and a bag of Giant Chocolate Buttons for dinner and the ghosts of Halloweens past, present and future visited me in the night. There was more of the Wotsits than the grave about them. At least Ebeneezer Scrooge behaved like a grown-up.