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The Happy Cartographer's Halloween 1991



The cardboard spider was splendid indeed. Halloween and Christmas are the two festivals that promote decorating the house, so maybe that’s why they are my favourites. The sparkles, lights in trees and candles in pumpkins, caught my imagination early. Actually, as children, we were given turnips to carve, pumpkins were too exotic for our household. For safety, we carved with spoons not knives. Carving a turnip with a blunt spoon is not easy, but the end result was proportionately satisfying. 







‘Halloween 1991
Put our decs up and partied. I made a black and orange spider, out of cardboard, to match our streamers. Flat looks funky. Inflatable flashing spook is a big success. Daughter extroverted as ever, chasing guests with an egg box dragon. She decided to wear a green hat, rose patterned gypsy dress and a fluorescent beach bag. Went to bed happily too. I think parties are natural environments for her. Lots of people around, lots of drink to go round and I made pigs liver pate, pepperoni pizza, baked potatoes, sausages, crisps and sweeties for our party tea.
Next morning.
Tired but not ill. Tidied up by 10am but it’s still smoky in here. Making post Halloween bash hash for tea and have plenty of college work to do! I love festivals. They keep you in touch with the world, seasons and life as an ongoing process, all cyclical and sparkly.’




Smoking indoors!!!!!!!!!! OMG. I almost cut out this sentence, for shame, and then I remembered the flat next door. One set of our new neighbours was a retired bus driver and his wife, they were both heavy smokers and had heavy emphysema. 






Also, they had a teaspoon collection, which they kindly invited me to view. Displayed in a wall mounted wood and glass unit, these commemorative spoons were mostly sent to them by other people, as the couple were too ill to travel much. I don’t want to promote smoking but neither can I claim that I’ve never done it; it was a night-time comfort routine for me, a moment of pausing before sleep. The teaspoon collection helped curb the habit. 

The other important thing here, beyond the cultural shock of indoor smoking and back to the map of finding happiness, is that we like to celebrate, we pay attention to the moment. My reason for loving festivals holds fast, that was a habit worth cultivating.





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Kwickix said…
Beautiful colourful picture painted with carefully chosen words
25 January 2012 at 09:16
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