So welcome to part two of my first two part update. If you have missed part one please click here.
For the first time in nine years the Badger Moot occured over Halloween. Every year we do a little something for the kids for Halloween, usually involving a piñata in a suitably Halloweeny form, this year, however, we went one step further and had our second fancy dress night of the week.
The Manor house is spooky enough and we quite often try to freak each other out with tales of unexplained noises or movements out of the corner of your eye. It definitely has a history and I am sure it could tell many a tale. Adam, Lucy, Steve and Zöe had volunteered to organise the party and food and dress the house with Halloween decorations. To allow them time to get everything ready we all headed out of the house and into the Dorset countryside.
We headed first to Bridport to collect a few minor items to add to our costumes and then we were going to head further down the coast. However the October weather had other ideas and the heavens opened. It wasn’t the fact that it was raining, it wasn’t the fact that it begun hailing, it was the fact that it was hitting you horizontally. So we took shelter in the car and since there appeared to be no break in the clouds we just took a drive down the coast road towards Abbotsbury to watch the power of the sea crashing into the shore from the safety and dry of the car. That killed a little bit of time but eventually we had to head back to the manor to dry off and get ready for the evening.
Banned from the kitchen and lounge we headed to our room to don our costumes. Éowyn and Amélie both had a choice of two costumes, a witch outfit and a ghost costume. Éowyn wanted to be a witch (well a witch princess to be precise) but Amélie refused to dress up. ‘No witchy thank-you.‘ So we asked her if she wanted to be a ghost. ‘No ghosty, thank-you.‘ So she was the only one who was not in costume for the evening, however she did take a shine to Finley’s axe and spend most of the evening dragging it around – which is slightly worrying.
Once suitably attired we headed to the television room to wait for the grand unveiling of the party. It did not disappoint. A lot of effort had gone into the decoration but the pièce de résistance was the skull and plastic limb bones surrounding a baking tray of ribs and sausages. Yes the main meal was presented to look like a corpse but it sure did taste good. The decorations and cannibalistic gastronomy was enhanced by the spooky Halloween sound effects playing on an iPod.
Once the meal was finished it was time for the annual piñata and the delights that it held inside. The children, as always, were very good in taking turns to bash hell out of the cardboard and papier-mâiché Frankenstein (‘s monster to be specific. Victor Frankenstein was the name of the scientist, Adam was the name of the monster – but you all knew that, right?). As always it took a while until it finally yielded the sweets inside which were then placed in a big pile to share evenly between them all.
It was a great night and fun was had by all and thus I decided to make this a two part update to do justice to the effort that everyone put into their costumes and the sterling work that Adam, Lucy, Steve and Zöe put in to spookify the Manor house and hopefully the photos below give you a little bit of the flavour of the evening.
Peace and Love
Baggie
