{"id":1178,"date":"2008-10-31T13:10:22","date_gmt":"2008-10-31T12:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2008-10-31T13:10:22","modified_gmt":"2008-10-31T12:10:22","slug":"waiting-for-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=1178","title":{"rendered":"Waiting for Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid (which admittedly was some five decades ago), here in Britain (at the time I lived in Manchester), this time of year meant Bonfire Night<\/a>: collecting material for a bonfire, building a guy, collecting money for fireworks and then – on the night itself – the bonfire, the fireworks, toffee apples and parkin cake.
\nBy the time my son was a kid (some three decades ago), Bonfire Night was already being challenged by the celebration of the more American festival of Halloween<\/a> which I guess really took off in Britain with the success of the film “ET”. In those days, we had abandoned the idea of a bonfire, but I collected money from the neighbours with children, bought a special set of fireworks, and then set them off at a street gathering in circumstances which I hoped were safer and more fun than individual household displays.
\nNow we then lived – and still do – in north-west London which has a large Asian population and the celebration of the Hindu festival of Diwali<\/a> in late October usually meant at least as many fireworks in the area as Bonfire Night in early November. Meanwhile Halloween has become more and more popular and one can see why – no dangerous bonfires and fireworks, an excuse to dress up and knock on neighbours doors, and lots of treats.
\nAs far as our cat Honey<\/a> is concerned, late October and early November is one long nightmare in which Diwali, Halloween and Bonfire Night just run into one another as a set of unpredictable loud noises. But Vee and I have bought lots of treats for the local kids and are ready for them …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid (which admittedly was some five decades ago), here in Britain (at the time I lived in Manchester), this time of year meant Bonfire Night: collecting material for a bonfire, building a guy, collecting money for fireworks and then – on the night itself – the bonfire, the fireworks, toffee apples […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}