Poison and ghouls

The last few days have been miserable thanks to my sensitivity to chemicals and perfumes which never ceases to amaze and infuriate me. On Friday we ran out of our usual Eco washing up liquid and bought some Fairy. Within a few hours, my breathing was laboured, my eyes watering and my tongue sore. I can actually taste the perfume of the liquid in my mouth.......and this is all from someone else washing up and me just inhaling the smell --- not from using it myself or using crockery washed in it. The worst thing is that this reaction also includes an overwhelming desire to sleep.

It was only last week that I ventured into Tesco in order to buy some binbags which are in the same aisle as cleaning materials and air fresheners and marvelled and raged against all the 'stuff'. There they all were: row upon row upon row of harsh chemical cleaning products, of air fresheners and anti-bacterial wotnots.

What in heavens name is wrong with people ? Why do we have to have so many products that all do the same thing and which, in any case, are matched by home made natural products like lemon juice, bicarb etc etc. Why can't we have just a few simple things that do simple jobs instead of this kind of ersatz, paranoid, germ free home-iness with plug in thingies that exude synthetic smells of fresh bread, Tahitian evening strolls, freshly laundered linen. In a few weeks we'll be encouraged to buy some other gizmo that replicates Christmas smells. The amount of waste in terms of packaging, research, promotion must be phenomenal and yet people still buy this toxic junk. If I want my washing to smell of 'clean water' why not wash it in clean water and hang it on the line rather than wash it in a 'clean water' perfumed powder and dry in a tumble dryer ? Why do I need to have my clothes wreaking of jasmine and orange blossom ?

Anyway, having been poisoned by some toxic washing up liquid I forced myself to go with my daughter to our annual Halloween pilgrimage at the local Market Garden Farm Shop (which is also where we buy all our Eco products and organic veg). Each year they put on a fantastic Halloween event with costume competitions, face painting, scary walks, good food, pumpkin carving and so on. This year's was one of the best.

There were loads of children -- tiny, tiny pumpkin people with legs, tiny tiny red devils with forks, little 3 year old witches with broomsticks and great big hairy teenagers with white faces and blank eyes ---they weren't in costume ;-)

There was mulled wine and the burger stand ( organic and proper bread) with, apparently a big steel saucepan from which you could get soup; except when you tried, there was a boy under the table who shot his head through the hole in the bottom of said pan and let forth a blood curdling scream.

The scary walk led us through a corn field with dried out maize way above our heads. There was a red devil over 6' tall with a real goat on a lead, a Hannibal Lecter lookalike mooching about in the corn at the side of the path --there one minute, gone the next,-- a snake charmer in the field, a huge glowing skeleton in a far off tree and all the screaming you could wish for.

Our last few minutes offered up a little gem.

All evening we'd noticed a very plump little ghoul, about 7 years old: hair gelled back, face painted blood red with spiders' webs across it in black, black one-piece costume with a forked tail. She looked like a chubby, sweet goblin really though she tried her best to look scary.

On our way out we saw her standing alone, holding the vegetable man she'd made earlier and looking this way and that.

Maybe she'd lost her Mum ?

She looked quite calm, but maybe we should go and ask if she was OK.

As we approached we realised that she was not in distress at all but,rather, extremely put out by the fact that her mother was elsewhere

" Oh for Christ's sake, where is that ruddy woman ?' " she muttered to herself.

With her mild expletives and sour, exasperated expression, it was the scariest she'd looked all evening.