England seems to run on a chain of festivities. Everyone looks forward to Christmas and after Christmas; New Year. After New Year, Valentine's day. And after Valentine's; Easter and after Easter; summer. After summer; Halloween and then it's starts over.
Of course I love festivities; Christmas, Easter ... but I've never struck a solid relationship with Halloween. When we were kids we never went out for Halloween, as much as our chocolate fed minds wanted to. We stayed in. We had dinner, answered the door to 'trick or treaters', decorated the front door, had oranges left on our steps, carved pumpkins, drunk our blackcurrant juice through plastic skull straws, dressed up and, once, even had a Halloween disco between the three of us. Halloween was fun for that reason, but that particular day wasn't the reason I lived through the winter.
But this year, I felt a communal spirit. When you're mixing with thousands of people, many of whom worship Halloween like God, it is inevitable that you'll get caught up in it. So this year I thought; Hey! Why not? and put my all into finding a suitable costume.
I went through the motions; classic zombie, vampire, corpse bride but eventually settled on Cruella Deville from 101 Dalmatians.
Let it be known that I really really LOVE dressing up, but only when I make the costumes myself. So I ransacked my drawers looking for anything white, black and spotty. I found all three and headed off to Primark; useful for most necessities and cheap fancy dress. I was looking for some fishnet tights but instead found a perfect white below the knee dress with black shoulder pads. Size 6 was a bit of a squeeze and with a 30cm mud stain right down the middle and a broken zip, it wasn't the definition of classiness nor the piece de resistance but with a tight budget and a price tag of only £5, it was worth it.
I brought it home, alone with a toy dog in a spotty coat that I planned to take with me, and spent 30 minutes rubbing rose scented soap and a flannel into the stains. I managed to remove the majority - it was halloween after all, it didn't matter how awful you looked.
My excitement for getting ready was rising. I had the dress, the dog, the gloves now all I needed was the hair. I back brushed both sides and worked hairspray and flour into one and left the other. I can still, even now, feel the doughy remnants at my roots. It wasn't perfect and not crystal, but as I had already proved with the colour of my dress that grey was now the new white!
For £12 a ticket I was expecting the night to be a blast. Everyone was dressed and, surprisingly, there were far fewer provocative dresses than had crossed my mind. I assumed that I would easily make my money's worth. I had a good time, at least. But I walked away with a feeling of disappointment in hindsight. My dog hadn't even made it out with me, the dress was too tight but generally the whole night just felt so overrated. Everywhere was packed, which I supposed could have been expected, but apart from a good chance to get creative and dress up, the night meant little else. I don't understand why Halloween is so popular. Clubbing was never in the interest of ghosts, nor zombies, nor demons, was it?
But it was different, I suppose, and I gave it a go and now onto the next; Christmas!!
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