Let’s do this together
Finally I don’t have to say “It’s not Halloween you know” to The Dark Lord when she comes downstairs with a ghoulish white face and black eyes. This is the one time in the year when she looks normal.
But this weekend is also when she’s allowed to be extra morbid, as she takes it all very seriously.
“Why would anyone say Happy Halloween anyway?” she growled at me.
“It’s not happy. It’s an endless night of horror as undead souls terrorise the living.”
“Just the one, dear?” I asked. “That sounds like all year round in this house.”
She scowled but didn’t react, and asked for the sewing stuff. We’ve got an old tin box that’s in the shape of a bus, full of needles and thread, but she’s banned from taking it in her bedroom because last time she dropped a plastic box of pins on the carpet. It was like walking on a bed of nails for a while. “Can you thread it for me? I need white,” she asked.
“What else do you need to do to your costume,” I asked, handing her a threaded needle.
“I’ve got to sew the ruff on the collar,” she said, adding. “Can you help?” Which meant could I do it for her. The “Come down in your outfit
and I’ll sew it on,” I said. She’s going trick or treating tomorrow as a Renaissance vampire and looks very dashing, like Brad Pitt in Interview with A Vampire, with an aubergine velvet frock coat and neck ruff.
“Will you be dressing up as Evil Mummy as usual?” she asked with a rare grin, which only comes out these days when I am exceptionally nice to her.
“Hmmm… not sure. It seems a terrible waste to bandage myself in loo paper if there’s another shortage,” I said, carefully sewing the white frills under her chin.
“Remember the Halloween parties back before it was rationed?” she reminded me.
“I know – such extravagance. We went through 20 rolls once for a Dress Your Mummy game.”
I stood back and admired my work.
“It suits you – maybe you should dress like this all the time,” I nodded at her.
“You’d be happy living the life of a vampire. Sleep all day, game all night, turn into a bat any time you’re asked to empty the dishwasher, that sort of thing.”
She opened her mouth to smile, and showed her tiny fake fangs.
“Thanks, Mum. If you need me, I’ll be upstairs in my coffin.”
■ Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.
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Give your little terrors a treat this Halloween with these spooky recipes. If you’re throwing a party, my mini monster burgers, complete with googly olive eyes and pointy cheese fangs, make the perfect finger food.
Have a fun afternoon in the kitchen baking these cute bug biscuits – we’ve used sweets and cookies to decorate them so they’re easy enough for children to make.
Or try our Halloween pie for a family dessert, filled with strawberry jam and apple then decorated with icing eyes for an eery Egyptian mummy effect.