Tag: halloween

ghosts and ghouls come out to play

pumpkin on brown wooden table
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The ghosts and ghouls are out tonight

With witches swooping through the streets

With buckets swinging from their brooms

Filled with sugar wrapped in foil

And parents shepherding their flock

Into the gardens with a pumpkin in

A secret signal that there’s treats

For little ghosts to swallow up

Under bedsheets that pillow out

In the cool October air

But those that hate those pesky kids

Will hide behind their sofas with

Lights turned off and TVs silenced

Waiting for the eggs to fly.

Happy Halloween everyone! I am fortunate enough to live in a flat with an entrance that is very concealed. Even the postman can’t find it, so there’s no way a group of five year olds will! That means that I’m exempt from the flying eggs and flour should I forget to buy in sweets.

As a kid, I used to like houses that gave away toffee apples but they cost about a pound each now, so there’s no way I would be giving those out.

I hope that everyone has a fun and safe Halloween evening, respecting those that don’t want to partake in the evening’s festivities. And well done it you manage to find a house that is giving out toffee apples!

Much Love

Rachel xx

stories about hotels

wall cladding
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The stories haunt the ancient halls,

Ghosts of distant times, some love

And others bang at wardrobe doors

With anger and resntment in their hearts.

There were conceptions here, and suicides

And once a lady owned this place,

Mad as a box of frogs, she was

And painted all the rooms a neon pink

Before the doctors came

And then the rot set in, and now

The hotel is a relic, a shell

Of its former self, so sad to see

The stripping of its notoriety.

I absolutely love stories about hotels -especially the spooky type. There is something so unknown about hotels. There are so many rooms and so much can happen behind those locked doors that it can make for some fantastic stories.

When I was training to swim the Channel, I regularly went down to Dover on my own for training weekends and I would have to book into a B&B for the Saturday night. I’d always pick a different one and I always found them fascinating places.

They are always in these old townhouses that must have so much history. And then the decoration always looks like it hasn’t been touched since the seventies. If there ever was a tragedy that took place in any of the rooms, I’m sure they just replaced the carpet and then carried on with business as usual.

Does anyone have any good hotel fiction that they recommend? Especially anything with a spooky twist as the leaves are turning and I’m in the mood for something scary.

Much Love

Rachel xx

the haunted house

photo of grey colored house during daytime
Photo by Kris Lucas on Pexels.com

The garden calls me from the world I know,

Grave stones poking through the grass

Like rotten teeth in swollen gums, I wonder

What lies below, what else could push their way

Upwards, to grab at ankles as I pass.

Once at the door we’re always greeted by

A man unusually tall, stooping and groaning

Holding candles sagging in the night.

Pictures change to gruesome sights, as we walk

Towards the cars that drift through halls

Like silent hands that hold us safe.

We swoop through ballroom scenes with ghostly girls

Held in arms of ghoulish men and someone sat

At organ keys, playing something tabgo-like.

And into basements we will travel, where the dead

Were buried (maybe not quite dead when trapped

Inside the nailed up coffin box. Now they play

With people as the venture in, jigging to

A song we cannot hear with earthly ears.

And when the journey ends we jump back on

To terra firma with the help of girls

Dressed in high neck shirts and full length skirts,

Out into a bright lit day, so at odds

With the darkness we have come to know and love,

Blinking in a gift shop full of branded mugs

And T-shirts printed with the living dead.

We part with too much hard earned cash before

We head off to Space Mountain for

Another ride, another thrill, another world

To make us scream with pure delight.

pumpkin season is open

woman in black long sleeve shirt sitting on bench holding jack o lantern
Photo by Oleg Magni on Pexels.com

They arrive so quietly, sneaking their way in

To the supermarket doorways in 6 foot boxes,

Autumn fruits spelling the end of the heat

And evenings so filled with red woolen blankets

And hot chocolate mugs on the longest of evenings.

I should hate this time of lengthening shadows,

Of coats and scarves and warm bobble hats,

But I rather love the scarier books

And the rain on the windows as I curl up inside,

With pumpkins on doorsteps and cobwebs in windows

And kids dressed as ghouls with buckets of candy.

It is this week that I have noticed the leaves starting to change colour and it has reminded me how much I love this time of year. I know that all the sun worshippers hate this time of year, but I just adore it.

My dad lives for the summer and becomes so grumpy as the longer nights set in and the weather gets cooler. I really like curling up on the sofa with a scary book and really getting into the spirit of October.

I think that a lot of it comes down to the fact that I am an introvert and I love that all the summer garden parties are done and nobody wants to leave the house any more. I get to sit at home and not feel like I’m being rude or selfish or any other thing people think about introverts.

And then there’s the books! How much do I love it when all of the booktubers start reviewing thrillers and horrors. I love the plot lines almost as much as I love the book cover art.

I’m just made for this time of year and I wish it could last forever. All I need to worry about is the Christmas and New Year parties that are just around the corner.

Much Love

Rachel xx