Truly Ghouly

We weren't going to do it this year. I grumbled a bit about the logistics on a week night with five but then it all fell into place. The girls mustered at a friend's house and donned a bit of their Scary McLairy attire. The small one wasn't supposed to go but kind of got dressed and suddenly she was. How could you tell this to stay home?

The Ghoulettes were not as pretty as in years gone past. As I painted Lala, she kept insisting."Uglier. Not ugly enough!" I told her she would scare the short one so she settled for Coraline meets the mummy.

When red eye works!

 By the time we started it was dark so the photos are pretty dodgy but you get the idea. This was the first stop. The face is saying ,"Are you kidding me? I say Happy Elouise* and they just hand over lollies?" This is her third Halloween. In fact it's everyone's third Halloween. The first she was in a pouch, next time in a pram and last year we had a bit of both. This year we all walked the entire thing.

* Shorty speak for Happy Halloween

While others were focussed on the lollies I was distracted by some seriously special West German pottery. Check out that lovely lamp. Colour and form, readers. This was the house of Scandy Andy whom we have visited before. Shorty only had one working head light which made her easy to spot in the dark but I kept expecting her to veer to the right.

Meanwhile the zombies were massing on Scandi's verandi!

The gloating and counting of the booty was the short lived climax of the evening. 

We scooped the boys up from their festival of tooth decay and dropped off some spare girls. The car was abuzz with festive energy and sugar and general overtired hysteria.

Some looked like they might not be able to sleep for a while. 

It takes more than some delirious preteen noise to put the self bedder off her game though. Indeed it is a sweet lullaby to her ears.

I had to pry that bucket of lollies from her grubby unconscious fingers.

There was no time for me to dress up with all the comings and goings but here's one I prepared earlier when Lala was introducing me to her beauty regime a while ago. She made this sparkly goop at a beauty birthday party. There were no cucumbers so apples sufficed leaving me all starry eyed. How do you like them apples? 

      "BOO!"

Tickety-boo!

Our friend lives in a house that backs onto a golf course. The girls spent a little time foraging for golf balls in the 'rough'.They warned us to watch out for ticks but even after a bathe, a hair rinse and a cuddle with hair stroking at bed time this bad boy got through the lines. He was in a bit deep for my tick extraction experience and he was on her head which made me nervous.

So I called the ambo! I thought they would extract it and be on their merry way but they said they couldn't do it and would have to take her to the childrens' hospital. It was a while before the local doctor would be open and she wanted it out, STAT! so ...

There was no fear or nerves but quite a bit of excitement. She had a bed and pillow and real seatbelt instead of the baby harness type that we endure in the car seat. The ambulance people were women who had the same doctor toys that Shorty has in her room- somewhere. 

The doctor wore pink, they gave her a pink ice block and she had a pink chart. In Shorty currency thee are all point scorers. BUT WAIT- for no extra cost you get this- YES! Your own tick to take home and wave in the nannas' faces or anyone else who might drop in. 

"Wanna see my tick?"

Strangely all of this happened the first morning of the first week that I did not have to go near a hospital.

Then the same day as the tick episode we had the ankle issue...

then on Wednesday, the wrist situation...

They told me to stand behind the door so I didn't receive any radiation. 

Ha! 

Murphy and his spooky old Law! It must be a Halloween thing.

Hello-weeny

Be patient, oh reader, for my scary tale is a long one beginning quite normally over rice bubbles and eggs this very morn. My 'sick' brother and I went to purchase shoes from the village square.
I tarried amongst the boots.....
where I became entranced by these eerily pretty satin dancing slippers.
Indeed it seems they were bewitched for upon wearing them I was overtaken by a deep and unsettled slumber.
Strange dreams overtook me where my brother wandered in a glassy world amongst giant floating Zoolander heads.
In my dream we meandered home along a winding road under a grey ominous sky filled with clouds of purple blossom.
Then I found myself in a blingy room watching my sister's Rapunzel hair grow shorter....
and shorter as she coaxed the scissor-wielding, tattooed Amazon to cut it, "More like Matilda's!" Soon she was transformed ......
into a CLOWN ZOMBIE!
I was swiftly recruited into her spooky, kooky kids' cult whereupon...
we were whisked off to the castle of terrible twelve year old boys who did foam and froth at us.
There were pumpkins ....
and candles and cheerios and much atmosphere.
Next we were taken to the mansion of Scandy Andy of which my dear Mama often dreams. There we were plied with Gingerdead men and mandarines....
whilst mother was mesmerised by his latest West German oppy urn ......
and this hypnotically lovely orb of orange crushed glass. His powerful potion of gin and grapefruit juice sent her spiralling into a deeper trance from which she cackled in delight as she stroked his vases.
Then, most bizarre of all, dear ones, I was walked to the door of a stranger's house to knock and beg and thereupon be bestowed with Chuppa Cups! Seriously! They just gave them to me! Even the nanna's have not reached such pinnacles of sugariness!
I tried it again,
This time I received a latex glove filled with popcorn.... strange times for a two year old.

The street began to fill with a colourful murder of fellow shorties driven by the fiendish desire to fill pillow cases and sequinned handbags with sugary booty.We went to pick up the final brother in the triptych of horror to find his own dream of having a puppy to be finally fulfilled.
Late on this eve, I awoke briefly on the couch back in my home surrounded by my dearly beloveds to realise it must have all been a dream. The lollies had all disappeared and Mama was feeling a little unwell. Spooky!