Laura Craik on Halloween Primrose Hill-style, the joys of fizz and 5am starts

“My youngest wants to dress as Wednesday Addams, which is basically #winningatlyf” 
Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar
Laura Craik25 October 2018

This Halloween, my youngest wants to dress as Wednesday Addams, which is basically #winningatlyf, since the costume is widely available on Amazon, and doesn’t involve a sewing machine.

‘But only if you go as Morticia,’ she added. Balls. I’m not into dressing up for Halloween, but in the interest of embracing any bonding activities that don’t involve a screen, I started googling.

As someone whose idea of Halloween is to stick a lamé pair of devil horns on their head after quaffing just enough wine to take the edge off the embarrassment of rocking up to some stranger’s door with your mutant offspring, I don’t understand the urge to transform yourself into some zombie sex apocalypse. As a person who, aged 13, went to a fancy dress party as ‘a bathroom’, I guess that’s not surprising. I can almost understand the booming cottage industry of online retailers selling sexy witch and sexy nun outfits. But sexy Clown, sexy Michael Jackson, sexy scarecrow and sexy deer costumes? Man, people have some bats*** crazy fantasies.

Stacey Solomon, Fearne Cotton, Holly Willoughby (James Shaw / SplashNews.com)
SplashNews.com

Last week, a woman posted an ad on a childcare website offering to pay someone £50 an hour to take her three kids trick or treating. I can relate. You haven’t experienced true fear until you’ve been kettled into Chalcot Square, NW1, surrounded by 6,047 three-foot-tall Fortnite characters hyped up on Love Hearts and Tangfastics. Woe betide you hand these entitled creatures a tangerine. Aged four, they already know the most munificent streets to prowl in order to claim the sweetest swag. The savviest kids and parents I know will be targeting Gloucester Avenue, NW1, Carlton Hill, NW8, Portland Road, W11, and anywhere in SW3. So, if you’re lucky enough to inhabit those hallowed enclaves, I’d suggest you turn your lights off.

A little sparkle

Water might be best for the skin, but sometimes a person just really needs a can of fizzy juice. I bow to no one in my love of San Pellegrino, Queen of Cans, be they blood orange, grapefruit or, at a push, lemon & mint. But wait, what’s this? They’ve changed their ingredients, replacing sugar with stevia? If you want a quick laugh — or simply to remind yourself that there is no middle-class wrath greater than that of a disgruntled Waitrose shopper — a quick scroll through Ocado’s comment section will put all fears of Brexit swiftly into proportion. ‘The last bastion of tasty sparkling beverages has been overrun by the great lumbering beast of the Nanny State,’ opines one customer, adding that the drink now tastes ‘like you’ve been sucking a 2p dipped in cyanide’. Harsh, or fair? You decide. No one said the sugar tax wouldn’t come with a price.

Cultura/REX/Shutterstock

Sleep easy

As someone who’s been waking up at 5am every single morning of my life* since quitting alcohol, the last thing I want in my inbox is an email about a book called The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life. Written by ‘legendary leadership and elite performance expert’ Robin Sharma, better known to his friends as Oh God, Please Don’t Put Me Next To Him At Dinner, it purports to ‘bulletproof your serenity in an age of overwhelming complexity’. Here’s an idea on how to bulletproof your serenity: don’t wake up at 5am. Yes, modern life is overwhelmingly complex, but there’s a cure for that. It’s called sleep, it’s free and it’s good for you.

*Apart from the time she got in at 5am

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in