Last nights
Halloween party was a huge success, and from dusk until quite late a
steady stream of children and adults trooped though our door in
search of the various treats on offer. Mountains of cookies, cakes
and other party food vanished quickly and we began to wonder if we
had enough to last the night.
In fact there should
have been several more items, however a crisis occurred on Friday
which not only prevented me to doing any baking at all, but also
caused us to miss breakfast, and lunch and made dinner very late
indeed.
We were up early on
Friday morning which promised to be a very busy day, the grocery
delivery had arrived and been packed away and we were about to cook
breakfast when a knock at the door heralded the beginning of a
strange and frustrating day.
We opened the door
to find a neighbour who was obviously very upset and so, of course we
asked her in, sat her down, made coffee and tried to help.
Her story was a long
one and although I cannot give any details, suffice it to say that
she had every cause to be unhappy and so, although bust we were not
inclined to turn her away.
Over three hours
later with her tale told, my son agreed to go home with her and
attempt to sort out her immediate difficulties, this was a generous
offer as his next book must be finished by Wednesday and he had
reached the stage where every moment counted.
We had begged her to
stay for breakfast but she was too upset to eat anything, so it was
that at around one thirty my son, armed with laptop, note pad and
pencil and went to view the mountain of paperwork which seemed to be,
in part the cause of the trouble.
During her time with
us the meat delivery had arrived and needed to be stowed away in the
freezer, having first been split in to manageable portions, for use
in the weeks to come.
This done and the
kitchen tidied the was little time for baking and I was obliged to
shelve the job until the next day.
At five my son
returned, he had invited the damsel in distress to dinner, after
which the two of them would retire to the study to complete their
deliberations.
She arrived am our
later and being by this time absolutely ravenous we all tucked in to
our first meal of the day at six O clock!
Pa and I cleared the
kitchen while my son, continued his night errantry and I must say
that by now the lady appeared much calmer and more cheerful than
before.
She left at ten, and
although her problems were not entirely solved she could at lest see
her way through them fog to a, hopefully favourable conclusion.
Well of course all
of this meant that on the morning of Halloween I still had all the
baking to do, the mini quiches, sausage rolls, witches fingers and
cupcakes, not to mention all the decorations. indoors and out to be
done. I was literally cooking against the clock.
Unfortunately the
cupcakes and witches fingers had to be left, along with a bath of
ghost shaped cookies. These were replaced by a large tin of sweets, a
huge bowl of crisps and large bowl of chocolate eyeballs.
It was well that we
had made these extra provisions as the number of visitors far
exceeded last years numbers, at one point a party of thirty children
arrived together, with adult supervisors. Apparently their had been a
party at a neighbours house and from their the children had been
taken around the village for “Trick or Treat”
We had laid out a
large party table in the conservatory which was decorated with
cobwebs spiders ans coloured lanterns. Serving such a large party
took a little time and the adults chatted, with some of our other
adult visitors over a glass of wine. It was great fun.
For the rest of the
evening children in smaller groups arrived at regular intervals,
quite number for the next village more than a mile away...all were
welcome
Many of the adults
were in costume and even I wore a grey kaftan embellished with a
black cat!
By ten thirty the
last of our visitor had left and so, armed with a very large Scotch,
I made my weary way upstairs to bed.
It had been a
wonderful party, what could be better that to spend an evening with a
house full of friends and happy children/
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