Halloween 2012

Meow. It’s just not fair that you should miss out on all the fun. Have a look at our thumping good Halloween party last week. Here’s Abiela being Puss In Boots.

Of course, there are very few pictures as usual from any kids’ party, because I’m always far too busy doing stuff and leading games. There are a few pics from the "Wrap the Mummy" game because I could stand back for a few minutes and watch them all wrap each other up in toilet paper – rare respite.

Oh, and here’s Klaus. The wig really pulls the whole thing together, don’t you think? Caused a few gasps when the mums dropped their kids off.

This is while they were all still gathering up and generally milling to loud music. Isn’t Charlie (the mummy) in the background doing well with his dance moves?

Here’s Coco being wrapped by the smallest kid there. Good mummification, girl!

The back yard was covered in what appeared to be a freak snowfall after this game.

You can’t see Lara very well here in her Bat Queen outfit, but she’s helping herself to the fare. The mystery of kids... we calculated that just over half a sandwich and a fifth of a pizza per kid for 35 kids should be consumed even if they weren’t on peak eating mode.... SO much left over.  I have now worked out the following formula

f = k/s x t/s

Where f = food, k=kids and t=time. As the number of sweets increase, both the number of kids and the time elapsed decrease in significance, and food becomes less no matter what the circumstance.

As there aren’t many pics from the party, here are some from the run-up. Coco, Flash and Lara sitting between Charlie and.... I’m so sorry, I forget the skeleton’s name. The decorations were extensive, a whole army of zombies and mummies came out of the closets in Graham Street and took up residence, much to everyone’s delight. My personal favourite may be the witch holding an apple, who cackles hysterically when you push her button, but there were many others, including giant spiders, severed heads, caged ghouls, witches galore, distorting mirrors, vampire hog bats.... We might (possibly) make another ‘Second’ family party of it next week when the kids are back, which might afford a few more opportunities to see everyone’s costumes. They were quite good, I have to say.

Getting into scary mode.... Oh, and always practice frightening faces sitting on the sofa in your wetsuit.

The pumpkin getting his lobotomy

"Ooh, how's it going to turn out??"

Very nicely, thank you. Klaus with Lord Denby (this year's pumpkin's name). It was wonderful to sit back and watch him carve it - no struggling with hard pumpkin for me this year, he just carved through it like butter, in about five minutes. Ah, bliss.

And here's one of Flash looking pretty on the kitchen table. As they do.

That’s about it for Halloween pictures, I’m afraid. We had a great time at the party but that evening Flash came down with a gastro sort of flu Lara must have brought back on Monday (she was ill off school that day) and by Friday the whole lot of them were throwing up all over the place. Saturday was spent recuperating, and Sunday everyone was back on track (might have some other pics from then, actually... just a few) but in short the only person who was completely unaffected was me. Touch wood. Which must (incidentally) be what my stomach is made of. Anyway, a very happy November to everyone J