Treat every time for me please! For some reason this year, I’ve suddenly bought into Halloween. I get it. For a long time, I’ve spent 31 October being quite Scrooge-like in my manner. Not answering the door to trick or treaters, arranging the decorations to suit my decor rather than reflecting the gory tackiness that is normally associated with Halloween fun. Lately, a supermarket trip is dwarfed with the onset of Christmas so I don’t notice the orange and black Halloween impulse buys at the end of each aisle.

However, a recent trip to the supermarkets convinced me to spend ten pounds on the most hideous yet funny, scary items for a spooky October. I was hooked.

Amputated plastic limbs, a wide variety of dressing up costumes for children (including a fake blood-soaked bandage outfit) and three big hairy black spiders for a laugh! Love it. I found myself getting quite excited and wondering who to invite round to share the laugh with.

I now realise that Christmas appears to loom for so long because I haven’t broken this season up with Halloween or Bonfire. So now I’m ignoring the snowman-covered packaging on biscuit boxes and heading straight for the chocolate eyeballs.

OK, so it’s off to find the pumpkin. I’m torn between a real, home-grown one which I will undoubtedly have to avoid severing a limb while I hack into with a sharp knife or a plastic pumpkin -(up-in-the-loft-for-next-year) which comes ready carved. Either way, I plan on scaring the children and I’m looking forward to dressing up as a real-life mummy – fake blood and all!