A Halloween story

All Souls' Day, the day after Halloween, is a public holiday here. It falls on Tuesday next week and so many people take the Monday off work. Days off between weekends and public holidays are known as a puentes, or "bridges".

Wifey, Little One and I are using the bridge to go to Montseny, a wooded mountainous area about an hour’s drive or a couple of days walk from Barcelona. Montseny just so happens to be famous for witchcraft and ghosts (lots of giving Little One the creeps), as well as a hundred or so different species of edible fungi.

****************

My teenage (as he was then) brother once went out trick or treating with his pals in Leeds. At that time, trick or treating wasn’t very common in West Yorkshire.

One of his friends knocked on a door. It opened and a middle-aged man appeared and peered out into the darkness.

Pal: Trick-a-trea’!

The man noticed the group of teenagers and looked at them suspiciously.

Man: "Sorry?"

Pal: Trick-a-trea’!

Man: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Pal: You give us sum’at valuable or we do sum’at fuckin’ nasté!

Extortion, in other words.

"Bugger off or I’ll call the police"

Slam!