HALLOWEEN

When did Halloween become such a major event? It's got to be relatively recent, because I certainly don't remember much about it from MY childhood.
But now it's all over the shops and even the foodie magazines have recipes to help you celebrate.
It's undoubtedly all another big marketing ploy to make people part with more of their hard earned cash. For goodness sake, Sainsbury's are even selling Halloween fancy dress costumes and, judging from the tantrums I overheard today, the kids are giving their parents a really hard time about them. 'But everyone else has got one.' I overheard today. And yes, unfortunately, they probably have.
All of this reminds me of our first experience of that well known Halloween custom - Trick or Treat. Well actually, it certainly wasn't THAT well known to us when we first moved from Oxfordshire to Northumberland. We'd never heard of it and so, when the kids came knocking on the door and said, 'Trick or treat', to Charles, he replied that he would like a treat thank you very much and promptly took their booty off them and shut the door. 'This is great', he said to me, 'The kids here go round giving you treats for Halloween! Do you want the sherbet dab or the fruit salad?' Um, I don't think it works quite like that Charles! Funny thing though, they didn't come back the following year!!! (Or the one after that either!)