We have ways of making you enjoy yourself.

I am living in a twilight of unremitting pain now, thanks to the fun I can have at Hallowe'en.

Honestly, this is one reason why I never wanted to send the kids to school.

At the nursery Shark, Squirrel and Tiger attended for those disastrous months, preparations for any cultural event started weeks in advance.

Worse, we were supposed to be grateful; the staff probably reminded me daily of how they'd relieved me of a job. No they hadn't. They only added to my job, because every day the kids were at nursery, I spent my time undoing the damage.

Take Christmas. The staff started that the day after Bonfire Night. The nursery supervisor? (The enormous one with the big arms and narrowed stare, who I will call Gloria.) She was in charge of the wall display. She simply left the tinsel in place. She had previously used it for the Catherine Wheel, and before that, the summer sun on the beach party. November, she merely supplemented it with a 5cwt tub of glitter.

We parents had to ooh and aah at this amazing demonstration of creative thinking, then say nicely, Thank you Gloria, and not add under my breath, for being such a pointless arse.

I would collect my kids, usually hiding in the toilets or quivering miserably by the door, and there would be Gloria, waiting to lay home the message about the magic that is Christmas (i.e. whipping the 3 year olds into a froth of disappointment every day for six weeks).

Out would come a folded bit of paper stuck over with glitter. Gloria would be permitting no doubt about this matter, but yelling 'Hand it over. It's lovely mummy isn't it? LOOK. MUMMY THINKS IT'S LOVELY.' She lacked only the tenderness of an iron bar.

And the entire ordeal of celebration from November 6th to January 6th was totally for the benefit of Gloria and the nursery staff. They would doll themselves up in yards of tinsel come December, start consuming large blocks of brown-coloured lard, and force the school administrator to wear reindeer antlers. Of course they claimed it was entirely for the benefit of the children.

No it wasn't. Suffering a relentless enforcement to enjoy the Laws of Festivity in Gloria's god-given righteous way, and impose it all on my kids from November to January, was like a violation of my soul.

Now look. I've got well off the track. Probably a defense mechanism.

It is just that I see the same thing happen over Hallowe'en. Only this time I can't escape with my indignation. I cannot seem to opt out the prescribed ways of enjoying myself.

Look here. We haven't even reached the party yet.




For a woman who has gone out her way to avoid particular identifiers of mainstream culture (yes, call me anti-social, who cares, the world needs fruit loops), this is all pretty hard to bear.

I do not expect sympathy.

But I would like some. Tomorrow I have to wear the clip-on horns.