Eye of Newt

Wild Things was a great success last night. And someone very powerful must read my blog because no sooner than I had complained about the lack of weather in these parts, than wonderful deep fog was supplied to make our fright night even more creepy.

Joanne was a fly and I was a spider and we were stationed on the pond platform that you can see in the picture. Over the course of the evening we developed a little routine, I had a web, I tried to trick her into my web and during the ensuing mayhem we discussed our respective eating habits, numbers of legs, eyes and other interesting details.

As it grew darker, we became more scary - we knew this because small children started to jump and squeal when they saw a huge spider emerge from the pumpkin lit corner. In spite of this, they started to ask for hugs. I had somehow developed a Transylvannian accent - possibly thanks to Igor earlier on in the week. The children couldn't see our faces, hands, feet, every part of us that wasn't costume was covered in black cloth or mesh. Yet still, one kid came straight up to Jo's fly and said,
'You're Griselda,' - Jo's witch in the Halloween Howl.

One little girl was scarier than us. She arrived with a bat drawn on her face and she told Jo that she liked flies but didn't like spiders.
'Are you scared of spiders?' asked Jo,
'I'm afraid of my dad,' she said,
'Oh,' said Jo, taken aback,
'I'm afraid of him all the time,' said the little girl with mum standing by watching placidly. Bat-face girl turned into a stalker, she kept coming back and threatening to kill me if I ate Jo. She became a bloody nuisance.

At one point while we were performing our little ad lib, it seemed as though someone had grabbed a floodlight and was pointing it straight at us. We could see less than when it was total darkness, but there seemed to be an unusually large crowd at this point so we kept on and on and on.
Later we were told that this had been the local news station. Gulp. Hope our ad lib hadn't gotten too bawdy but hey, there were kids present so most likely not.

A man shoved a little boy towards me.
'Go and make friends with the spider,' he told the boy, 'you need to be aware of your Scottish roots.' Well good thing that no-one had brought the brandy I'd been whining for all evening, because I was able to still access my memory banks and trawl up what he was talking about. My Transylvannian had to become Scots as I reminded the boy about Robert the Bruce, inspired by a wee spider. Dad seemed impressed,
'Not many people know about that,' he said, yeah they do, I thought, if they're English they certainly do. No matter, I don't think it was a five foot six tarantula that helped Robert the Bruce defeat the English though it could probably have been fairly useful.

Finally all the children had been scared, hugged and educated and we were able to get out of our costumes and head for a local hostelry.
Halloween is coming, Halloween is coming.