Halloween'een

Halloween came early this year, since some of our neighbours are not around tomorrow.  Hence, the day was spent carving pumpkins (with added French boy, with us to learn English), and decorating the front porch ready for the night.

In very typical French style, I was told very firmly by several neighbours that we could absolutely not start the trick-or-treating until 8pm.  So we planned dinner around that.  Naturally, at 7pm the doorbell started ringing and the courtyard was full of all our neighbours asking if it was time to start...

Eventually, all were fed and the kids headed off in a noisy rabble to scream at all our neighbours in a very organised way.  All was going fine (these meringue phantoms were a popular snack for the bored grown ups) until the French boy visiting us, let's call him Pierre for the simple reason that that is in fact his name, fell badly and lost most of his kneecap to the gravel.  Despite a little bit wanting to just phone his mam to come early, and then go off somewhere quiet to throw up, I managed to get it mostly clean and smothered in Savlon.  Given the scarred state of his other knee, his extensive knowledge of how to treat such injuries, and the casual way his mum accepted the news; I think this must be a fairly frequent occurrence.

Anyway, let's see if he comes back for another fun day of learning English...

Later, some meringue nibbling, wine drinking and a not too late night.