Halloween in the hood

We went there last Saturday too, to watch the rugby. Well, to do the usual deal, where G watches the rugby and I read my book. I liked it. It's close by, it is enough of a divey kind of pub/restaurant to suit my desire for such dives, and the guy who owns it made a toasted sandwich for a woman who walked in off the street with a baby and asked for help. She was another blogpost, but one that's been filed way back in my head, possibly not to come out. Yet. The people, all around 40+, and mainly manly-kind-of-men watching rugby, seemed to all know each other.

Anyway, we decided to go again, it being some rugby final and me loving the idea of reading my book and watching people. I was rewarded splendidly. The same crew were there, but arriving a bit after we did was a pretty and friendly blonde woman with a whole armload of plastic bags which she dumped on the big table in the middle of the room. Intriguing. She was greeted by most people in the room and I saw many an admiring glance from the male contingent.

It turned out that she was decorating for the Halloween Party later on that night. She had the whole bang shoot - bats, full moon pictures, zombies, fake spider webs and pumpkins. Well, sort of. She didn't really have pumpkins, but instead four butternuts and ten gemsquashes.

I became engrossed in my book for a bit, G completely focused on the rugby. I was reading the latest Fannie Flagg, you see, and I adore her writing and become completely entwined in her stories. Twenty minutes later I looked up and saw, seated all along the side of the table from which you could see the TV, three of the manly-men, all of them armed with a sharp knife, all of them shelling the "pumpkins" and cutting out scary faces.

What a perfect picture. They reminded me of family Christmas lunches when the women would all sit around a table, preparing the feast and chatting. As we left after the rugby, checking out their, suprisingly really good, handiwork, one of them looked at us and said "You girls leaving? Why don't you stay for the party?"

I replied: "Perhaps next year we will. Have fun!"

And I think we might very well just do that.