Halloween Fun

It's that time of year again - instead of spending six hours being OCD over the Christmas tree I instead take a mere two to carve what in reality is a very small pumpkin. I'm very proud though. I will keep this beautiful thing always as my favourite treasure: I don't care how decayed it becomes. Guests to the flat will be invited to have their photos taken with it, maybe even knit it mittens and booties.

Yes, get out the little black dresses, face paint, nail varnish, the hats, bats, rats and cats: it is officially Halloween. I'm excited. I'm also freezing cold as the flat is sub-Arctic, meaning my fingers are too stiff to type so this is going to be short.*

I remember my first ever Halloween party; I'd been invited by bigger children down the road to sit in a damp garage for hours, then I was dragged about, much like a broken doll trailing on the floor, for the trick or treating. A huge haul was accumulated, which was some what shocking in my 80s recession conscious and generally unfriendly neighbourhood. The ill gotten loot was to be shared out the next day, and I'm sure being a small, blonde, adorable sort of angelic child I went over and above the call to inspire extra sweets by way of sympathy and cuteness. However since the night was freezing, since I was soaked as my bin-bag cloak didn't hold up (ah the days when you made your own costume), I came down with something close to pneumonia (well a very bad cold). All the big children divied up all my share of the treats. No liquorice bootlaces for little Erika, which I had my heart set on. Since then I've usually had my own parties. Not always by myself. I do have friends. Some friends. Sometimes.

Tonight's plan involves making green pipe-cleaner snakes for my hair (Medusa again - hence picture of instructions on how to tie a peplos, and no it isn't common sense), drinking lots of kirsch, and probably cutting out more bats, which have been characterised to look like people I know, or er what's the word -friends. Oh yes, Halloween is a serious business despite the fact that the days of my mid-twenties are fleeting away from me like adventurous kittens in soggy paper boats. But tonight, who cares?! Soon all my settled, sensible, grownup friends (I do have some) who live in proper places unlike Aber will start having children with whom I could live vicariously through.... well I could if I liked small, irritating, incomplete versions of real people that is. I'll probably just get older, buy bigger bottles of kirsch and take to jumping out waving a stick on October 31st, or well, let's face it whenever I damn well feel like it.

* Incidentally I'm hoping if I keep hinting how cold it is someone will send me some fingerless gloves so I too can be Bob Cratchit.

Be Cool - Fun Thing # 87

I'm cool. Properly cool. I'll need to get some ray bans because, they're cool right? Having never been cool before (and labouring under the fantasy that the interviewing a band for a free newspaper automatically confirms such status) I'm experiencing giddy highs and a tendency to act like the Fonz, or break out into a massive grin, and don't tell me a grin isn't the epitome of cool. In a couple of weeks my reviewing might will be exercised in a semi-professional capacity and my name gets to be in print as a proper honest to goodness music journalist. You're impressed, I can tell. Cool.

I'll stop typing that word now. Promise.

To be honest I'm worrying more about what to wear, but I'd like to add that I'm doing so whilst listening to the two albums the band have produced (I'll stick the review up here once it's been printed). As to the interview questions - I'm hoping they'll come to me on the bus down to Cardiff; after all four and half hours have to be put to some use, apart from the usual falling asleep and dribbling windows. I also know to take a sandwich to the interview; this is not to feed the hungry musicians but rather me - just in case there's delays. Mind you I bet the band are a bit hungry - they've enjoyed serious critical acclaim but little commercial success as yet, they all look very thin. A sandwich, bus fare and a Dictaphone all you need to know to be a journalist right?

It's all the NME guys seem to need to do. Oh boy, I need to get me a Dictaphone to go with my delusions of grandure and ambitions of kissing various musicians.

I'd like to add; I'm still cool.

Burning the Midnight (Olive) Oil

Well I've been ill, again. Seven years of university and for six of those I've caught freshers flu. The only time I didn't get it.... yeah, you've guessed it - when I was a fresher. So between the sniffling, the sleeplessness, the unending agony of having to write a personal statement (still not finished) and the fact that there are still 33 weeks in which I have to dwell here, I'm less than chipper. On the plus side I am half way through a fine bag of olives that the splendiferous Deema bought for me in the ever-so exotic "euro"market that's been visiting.

I'm suspicious of "euro"markets, ever since a visit to Darlington, where a large quantity of cheese was ill advisedly purchased. As with all dodgy fromagerie it had a particular olfactory pungency - in this case you could even smell through the relative safety of a fridge, though at the the time we didn't realise where this acrid stench of decay was coming from. Or, I may add, what its ungodly origins may be - had the dead risen from their graves outside? Was there an unwashed sock protest march underway? I thought for certain that one of the others had contracted a strange and rare illness and they were just faking being well to make sure they got their wine glass topped up on a regular basis. Sadly the next day the cheeses (then uneaten) came for a long hot drive back down to Wales. No matter how fast we sped the smell still followed - an ominous waft from the boot.

For the most part the Aber market was the much same as Darlo; it hawked cheese, leather belts and handbags, fruit cider, and disturbing sausages, but tucked away amidst all the meat offcuts and strange knickknacks, was a very lovely olive stall. The vendor fitted into the stereotype of the typical sort of olive hawker that you see in such grandly named but oft disappointing markets; slightly unwashed, limited patience, a tendency to look hard done by and shirty customer manners - it's the aplomb with which they sigh when you ask for something which gets me. All the same he delivered the green and lemon stuffed goods. All in all it's a pity though; these great men and women should relish the role that they play; being proud of their gift of selling a fine and ancient foodstuff. Sometimes the simple things in life can bring such joy. Joy limited to a very short period admittedly, and financial liquidity, but it all counts all the same.

I've finished my bag now.

I still can't sleep. I may require toast.