My initial navigations to find the house have been completely Hallowe'en dependent - cross the road from Porter Square, walk past three houses decked in cobwebbing and enormous spiders, turn left at the house with the gravestones in the garden, then take the second right at the house with the enormous pumpkin. If you see the house with the inflatable witch trying to get into the hot air balloon then you've gone too far... With a sinking heart I came home today and saw that nearly all the decorations have been taken down, but - hoorah! - the inflatable witch house now has an inflatable turkey gobbling on its lawn so I have a new landmark.
In the spirit of our new lives we went trick or treating - a misnomer, as there were no tricks but many treats. We were clearly the amateur English family with outfits cobbled together from a local shop - Maya wore a mask which made her look vaguely like the lead singer of Kiss on a bad hair day, Iola was a self-styled "bad bunny", I borrowed a neighbour's hat, and Nathan wore a suit and tie (which possibly raised more eyebrows in this uber-liberal part of Cambridge than any other outfit seen that night). Grown-ups came out of their houses and sat on porches to admire children's outfits, several streets were closed off to cars, neighbours held street parties - our favourite was the street with the enormous inflatable haunted house with steaming cauldrons. Children screamed inside while grown-ups drank hot chocolate outside....
I feel a bit twitchy about Hallowe'en generally - taking all that stuff about devils and witches and the dark side a bit too literally. Finding that our new house contained various bits and bobs like ouija boards, rusting razor blades, scorched floorboards, and devil masks scared the bejeezus out of me! However, with vats of strong coffee, elbow grease, and an ever-increasing collection of cleaning products, we're beginning to find a flat filled with sunshine (now that it can get through the windows) and antique pine floorboards (they looked as though they might be mahogany when we moved in...). In terms of belongings, we have a lot of hallowe'en "candy" and very little furniture - 1 bed, 1 mattress, a slowly deflating airbed, a wok, a table, a collection of stools, a computer, and an enormous green beanbag. The beanbag is a revelation - if the ship now sinks mid-Atlantic with the rest of our belongings, my grief will be tempered by the fact that I will always have somewhere comfy to sit. Have a look - http://www.yogibo.com/
The next big event is going to be Thanksgiving, and we have lots to be thankful for. We love Cambridge, the girls bounce off to school very early each morning on their big yellow all-American school bus, Nathan is enjoying his new job, and I'm hoping to start writing again soon... perhaps, given this past week, it's time to shift genres and try my hand at a ghost story?
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