Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A comprehensive guide with some excellent recipes, 25 Sep 2008
Halloween tends to be an exceedingly interesting time of year in the Redhart household. Personally I am always ready to get into the party mood, although in the past there has rarely been so much as a 'ghost' of a chance that my wife might join in. Indeed, Doreen has always demonstrated a rather pronounced level of disdain for youngsters- the roots of which could probably be traced back to the birth of our daughter Dawn. Sadly the careless 'mistakes' that have since led to the arrivals of both Horace and Crispin did little to change her mind about the merits of children. Anyhow, although Doreen would never participate, I have had some wonderful celebrations in the past. Sadly, however, in 2006 Doreen decided to ban Halloween altogether, much to the fury of the trick or treaters who were turned away from our door...
Well, you should have seen the mess our house was in that night! There was rude graffiti daubed across the garage wall, an assortment of rubbish strewn all over the lawn (including a couple of used contraceptives!), and a trail of human excrement smeared along the lounge windows. Indeed, with the house already in such a terrible state, I wouldn't have thought that a few old Halloween pranks could very well have made things any worse. How wrong I was! Much as I would like to think that we are a part of a highly respectable neighbourhood, I wouldn't deny that there are a few unsavoury kids in the community. However, the last thing I would have expected to receive through my window was a severed head tied to a brick! Doreen was absolutely furious! While she can be grumpy at the best of times, she was sorely unimpressed at having a pig's head invade the privacy of our bedroom at 2 am (although eventually she calmed down enough to see that the cloud had a silver lining- sure enough, the very next day we had the basis for a very lovely pot of stew).
Still, last Halloween, Doreen seemed to have learned her lesson from this incident- for she picked up a copy of this extremely helpful book and set about organising celebrations herself! I am pleased to say that we had an absolutely cracking party that year! The book covers anything and everything, including party games and how to make scary costumes (which Doreen had never previously been known to wear- aside from her négligée, that is!). There are also some very wise recipes for healthier alternatives to sweets and chocolate. Indeed, when trick or treaters came to the door, they were greeted by a cackling, gap-toothed old witch (kitted out in a werewolf costume) who was extremely generous about handing out some nutritious (yet tasty!) home-made treacle flapjacks. How surprising it was to see Doreen getting into the swing of things with quite such verve! It was only later on that I was to discover an empty bottle of high-strength laxative solution in the kitchen bin- and I'm afraid it was already well beyond the hour when I could feasibly have done anything about it. Some of the kids who called by had been clad in extremely high-quality costumes. If they had been hired from a fancy dress shop, they almost certainly would have had to leave a sum of money that would be retained in the event of damage. Yes, let's just hope that any 'deposits' that were left on the costumes were not terribly substantial!
PS. While Doreen must take full responsibility for her unconscionable actions, I can't help but feel that a fair chunk of blame lies at my own two feet. A few days after the pig's head came crashing into my home, I found out that (far from being a childish trick) it was actually a reminder from Mickey 'Gold Fillings' O'Flanagan regarding the considerable debts that I had incurred on the greyhound track- but, of course, I wasn't very well going to inform Doreen of that!
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