Hallowe'en

For the first time in my life I have been involved in an alternative Hallowe'en party. Growing up, hallowe'en was always nicely avoided at home by watching the television in the backroom with the rest of the lights off in the hall and landing so that it looked as if no one was in, and then ignoring the doorbell if it rang. Any unlikely trick or treater should ring the house phone before coming round or they would be ignored on the doorstep!

So I am forced to think about what I think of Hallowe'en. I think that before I was rather sceptical of alternative hallowe'en parties, that there was really no need in encouraging hallowe'en and that if we just ignored the silliness then it would go away (the ostrich approach). One boy at the party today asked, 'but isn't this a hallowe'en party?' and it made me wonder whether we are giving off mixed messages. I haven't come to a conclusion yet and will spare you my trying-to-work-out-what-I-think-while-typing splurge. Any views will be greatly received.

On the other hand, the party was very enjoyable. It had befallen me to lead team games, though how on earth I managed to land myself such responsibility when I no longer even go to the church, I'm not quite sure. Made me feel wanted though :) . The games went fairly well, though after 2 attempts at one running game (run round a chair and back to the beginning, take the next person by the hand and run again until the whole team are running around the chair in a huge chain) I scrapped it for the third because it wasn't working very well - it was a little on the dangerous side of things. We had played it in France at LPO and it worked well there, but I think because of the open space and grass; it was rather more confined in the church. The children were somewhat hyperactive and very noisy, the lack of a decent sound system made calling for order very difficult indeed. I think a system of shutting up and sitting down was necessary to avoid total chaos, but maybe that's the twitchy teacher in me.

On a totally different topic, we have only one more week of Dona Nobis Pacem now before the performance. I think I know most of it now comfortably enough, there's only a few really quite sketchy pages at the end I need to brush up on before next week's rehearsal. I'm rather more concerned that we haven't rehearsed Parry's Blest Pair of Sirens for weeks and weeks, well over a month I'm sure - and that's in 8 parts! Eek!