Judging by the roving bands of little demons and witchlets that were terrorising the neighbourhood last night, nobody paid much attention to the bishops’ warnings of the pagan nature of Halloween. I thought my own little devils looked great although Sami was a bit miffed with his make-up. He thought it was ugly but eventually got into the spirit after he was forced to agree that there was no such thing as a pretty pirate.

Leaving the kids with Gaga we went off into the night for a bit of trick or treating of  own own. We stopped by at The Penalty and then made our way to Scottish bar.  The owners, Pauline and Bobby cook up a fab fish and chips and great breakfasts but Bobby’s Saturday curry is so good it sells out early so get there before nine if you want to be sure you get some.

As it happens if you missed out on Bobby’s curry you could have stuffed your face with the free chilli con carne that was on tap at Our Place but as Chef Igor doesn’t do mild, you did need to like it hot. Not that that would have been a problem last night because the only people in the place were the evil and the undead.

Everyone was there from Cruella de Ville to a victim of the Whitechapel murders. There were enough skeletons to open a boneyard and more witches than you could shake a broom at.

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Modern Halloween, as in kids getting dressed up and going trick-or-treating, is not a traditional Spanish festival. In fact, the Spanish Bishops are getting a bit hot under the collar about the whole thing and are urging parents not to dress up their kids in costumes in celebration of this pagan event.

That doesn’t seem to bother my neighbour, Lola, much. She has been fussing and fretting over her kids’ costumes since the beginning of the month and seems quite bewildered at my lukewarm attitude. To be honest, I am just delighted that Gaga and her sidekick, Linda, are going to be throwing a party for the local kids which gives me the excuse to go out for a bit of kid-free gallivanting of my own. Let’s face it, Sami is a wee diablo for much of the year anyway, while Hania, well let’s just say she can be a little bruja when she feels like it.

Regardless of what the Bishops have to say, you can guarantee that unless you are smart and offl0ad the kids and shoot off out for the night or sit in pitch blackness with the telly off, your front door is going to ring off its hinges on Saturday night. So, just to help you out, I have prepared a little  list so that you  may have the right response handy.

Just fill in the blanks…

¡Caramba! ¡Qué un esqueleto espantoso! (Yikes! What a scary skeleton!)

• monster = monstruo
• witch = bruja
• fantasma = ghost
• vampiro = vampire
• werewolf = hombre lobo
• zombi = zombie

If you are having a party of your own, then there is nothing that screams Halloween more than pumpkin soup for which Andy Montgomery has provided a devilish recipe in the new online Tenerife Magazine.

And finally, I’d like to leave you with a little Halloween riddle that has bothered me for some time. Why do witches never have babies? Because warlocks have hollow weenies. Bwahahahah