Didn't find Halloween this year. But it did find me

[Boo]

It's 9pm on Halloween and I'm just writing a quick note about the last two days.

I've been planning the Halloween weekend for months. Yesterday I took the day off of work, collected my two nephews from my Sister's house and we went shopping for pumpkins, Halloween food and whatever decorative stuff they had left in the supermarket. In the afternoon we watched 'The Nightmare before Xmas', and then when my wife arrived home from work the 4 of us went for a spooky walk on Wiimbledon Common, past the huge graveyard that borders it and through the woods as it was getting dark. We spent the rest of the evening barbequeing our food and letting off fireworks and Pumpkin-shaped giant Chinese lanters.

This morning we spent the day at a Painshill park on a Halloween special, carved pumpkins, heard a ghost story and explored the old grounds and strange follies that litter the place. My sister arrived to pick the kids up at 4pm.
After they'd gone it dawned on me that whilst I'd had a great time, I'd completely failed to capture any of that Halloween magic, it just felt like any other day.

So the wife and I walked to our local grocers and bought some food for dinner. On the way back I saw a solitary Jack O'lantern on the garden wall of one of our neighbours....and I felt a sudden twitch inside me. I arrived home and put a lit Jack O'lantern in one of our front windows and went to watch some tv. 'Ding-dong', the door bell went and there were some really nicely turned out ToTers on the door step. It's the first time in 12 years some have called. In the next 15 minutes another 4 lots had called and I was rapidly running out of sweets, so I summoned the wife and our cowardly dog and we set off to the grocers again. And then it happened, I walked past house after house displaying a Lantern and gaggles of ToTers, I've never seen so many of either. There's a full moon and that coldish bite to the air that we always describe in our perfect Halloween descriptions. I reached the end of the street and stood for a few seconds and shook my head, I was completely in the zone, it felt perfect and my wife had to ask what I was grinning about.
Anyway, we've had dinner, the ToTers seem to have gone for the night and in an hour the 'Most Haunted - Halloween 2009' show begins, followed by the film 'Halloween' at 23:20. We're going to put our feet up and thoroughly enjoy them.
I tried so hard to make this weekend a Halloween success, and what I failed to do despite considerable expense and effort; I managed to find in a perfect 200m walk past my my neighbour's houses. It certainly is a strange night.

Hope you're all having fun

[Ghoul of the Graves]

Sounds almost magical, Boo. I'm in England too, wasn't the full moon awesome? Down in the South East there was tonnes of mist. It really set up the atmosphere.

[witchy]

It does sound magical Boo, Have a Happy Halloween!!! Witchy

[Andybev01]

The only thing missing from your description, Boo, was the sound of hounds howling on a moor in the distance.

Magical!

[Belladonna]

Oh it is Andy, you are right!

The little magical things about Halloween pick us up and sweep us away. Love it!
Thanks for sharing, Boo.

[Spookymufu]

I wish I could have experienced that, in our housing track only two houses were decorated, mine and someone on the next street over....

[Halloweennut08]

That's great to hear The bug didn't hit me until the 28th which is way late for me but it was still a good Halloween night and TOT night broke the record from last year, full moon good chill I loved it I wish all Halloween weather was like that. Picture Perfect.

[adrian]

that's a good inspirational story i'm glad to hear that everything went well for you