Halloween-lite

I feel like I need to be sitting near a pool somewhere sipping a cocktail, reading a trashy book. This afternoon I made do with a long bath (not too deep of course! There’s not much water on this here continent) and a cup of tea and a trashy book. I have never been a big book-in-the-bath kind of person but these days I have discovered how amazingly nice it is. It’s like a peaceful bubble of warm, quiet “me time”. Trashy books are good because if you drop them in it doesn’t really matter. It’s a pity that my discovery has coincided nicely with our national water crisis and tighter water restrictions.
Anyway, the reason for my long bath was that this morning we hosted Amelia a Halloween (belated) birthday party. For some reason my reaction to the pre-party organisation was extreme. It wasn’t a very big party, only four families in total but for the last three days I have been having those pre-migrane zig-zaggy flashing lines across my vision and I have been screaming like a Halloween banshee at anyone who happens to refuse to eat their vegetables, or smears their yogurt on their ankles or calls out repeatedly for drinks of water after lights out. I am not sure why I have been lying awake at night thinking things like “oh yes, popcorn, brilliant idea, everyone will eat popcorn, must add that to the list.” etc. I have no idea why it all seemed so incredibly hard this year but I will put it down to the general lack of peaceful sleep over the last few months.

The party was fine, the small handful of guests were all the children of good family friends and were all very well behaved and quite charming. Parents chatted amicably and nibbled the adult-designated cakes. The games were mostly a great success thanks to Big-P and his ability to tame a wild crowd of cushion-throwing preschoolers. Vast quantities of food was consumed without too much complaining or a food fight and everyone went home happily with a prize. Afterwards I felt pretty good, like I had just run a marathon and I did a lot of happy dances because now that’s over! And now there are only 9 weeks until Christmas!