And so here we are at 10.00pm on Halloween and I'm removing the fortifications from my house and calling off the sniper turret guards after an expected invasion of demonic Trick or Treaters.
Of course, it hasn't really been that way.
I live on a major road coming out of the centre of Oxford and I'd be forgiven for assuming that I would be besieged by terrorist youths taking full advantage of the date to threaten my house with all manner of horrific consequences were I not prepared to part with various bribes.
What has actually happened was some degrees less than extraordinary.
At around 6pm, just as I returned home and this new winter sun had quickly dipped its head, a group of fun-loving children sang out the ‘trick or treat’ offering on my doorstep.
Nice. Sweet. Cute.
Supervised.
And horribly, horribly American.
I told them I wasn’t interested and they should go away.
They did.
Some time later the doorbell rang again. Distracted by the fact I was halfway through cooking a great curry, I temporarily forgot the date and answered the door.
This time the kids were a bit older.
Again I told them I wasn’t interested. This time I expected some kind of retaliation but I think my presence at the door had given them other ideas.
And then just minutes before writing this, as if sent by some blog writing messiah, at around 10pm this evening I was putting out some rubbish when a final (I assume) motley bunch started up the driveway, this time comprising of teenagers with barely a sniff of an attempt at a costume between them (I think one of the ‘chaps’ was wearing eyeliner and another was dressed in Freddie Kruger-style shredded jeans but these may easily have been standard attire).
They didn’t even get past the bins I was filling.
I won’t repeat what I said but it was based around two words and in a language they would easily understand.
Quite what a horde of kids prowling a road’s doors at such time of the evening hope to achieve, I have little idea.
OK, so I can be quite an imposing bloke when I want to be and I can give these kids something more than a skull mask or candlelit pumpkin to be afraid of, but the obvious answer is to not answer the door if you think it might be an issue.
But really. Whatever fear the Daily Mail and its like would like to fill you with, with almost no exception these jokers won’t take anything any further.
Kids aren’t that bad really. We were all one once.
Remember that next year.