Happy Halloween!

I AM posting this from downtown Baghdad. Well, almost.

I'm writing to you from Dublin but it's Halloween night and over here we have a tradition where people set off bangers and fireworks both in the run up to the night itself and for several nights afterwards. So since, oh about August now, we've been subjected to things that go bang in the night, but tonight it's like the Gulf War all over again. (Yes, yes, I know I'm being flippant here and fireworks aren't the same as the start of a war blah blah, so please don't email me to point this out!)

Apart from the incessant noise however, Halloween has gone relatively well for the Dunne household (we even had a party for the young-uns in the house) and there was general merriment all round. Well, Mammy and Daddy Dunne seem to have enjoyed it anyway. They're currently downstairs with a "nice slice of brack and a cup of tea". I didn't even know there was brack [fruit cake especially baked for Halloween for those of you not from the Emerald Isle] in the house, it appears Mammy Dunne had secreted it down the back of the gas fire so that it couldn't be eaten in advance of the big day. They're big on tradition in our house, so they are.

I have to say I was incredibly proud of the young people who called to the door this evening trick or treating. Every last one of them said 'thank you' when I gave them some fruit and sweets, with some even going so far as to say "ah thanks very much Missus". Yes, I'm "missus" now. I remember when I was "young wan", but that memory is now in black and white and I'm officially old. It doesn't seem so long ago since I was out there, dressed in a black sack and face paint thinking I was the best witch in the whole wide world. But now according to the kids on my road, I've one foot in the nursing home and the other on a banana skin. I'm 26, it's quite disconcerting!

The only disturbing thing I saw this evening (but bear in mind it's still early) was a group of kids being brought door to door by their parents who were drinking cans of beer on the street. (The parents that is, not the children!) I'm all for a few drinks at any opportunity, but I do feel Halloween and trick or treating is for young children and should be a family occasion not an excuse for parents to get drunk. Even as I type that I feel I deserve my "Missus" title that has been bestowed upon me and that I'm maybe old before my time, but it is something I feel strongly about. I have no problem with parents bringing their children out trick or treating, perhaps having a party in their home for them or taking them to a fireworks display and THEN having a few drinks to celebrate the night when the kids are in bed, that's absolutely fine and normal. But I DO have a problem with parents drinking in the street at 5.30pm while in charge of a whole gang of kids, I just don't think it's right. I don't have children of my own, so maybe I'm wrong but it felt wrong to see it and I know if my mother or father had brought me out trick or treating while drunk all those years ago, it would have spoiled the night for me.

Ok that's the end of my rant now, I'm off to check myself into Shady Pines with all the other old fuddy duddys! Happy Halloween!

Pic courtesy of http://photo2.si.edu/firew/firew.html