At Hallowe'en we always have lots of guisers coming to Johnshaven Stores to earn a bag of sweeties in return for giving us a joke, song, magic trick, poem or whatever. Usually they just come up to the counter where we have a few decorations, but this year we did something bigger and better.
In a corner of the shop there's a secret door which, until last night, hardly anyone knew about. It leads into our old living room (the new one is above Starfish Studio) and eventually we intend to extend Johnshaven Stores into this space. Until then it's lying empty and inaccessible other than through the secret door, which is usually covered in gift bags.
Eilidh had the excellent idea of decorating the room and using it for Hallowe'en, so over the last week or so she and Kirsty have been sneaking in there with all kinds of spooky decorations.
It was really dark and spooky, but the flash on the camera has lit it all up, so it's hard to show you how it really looked.
The hosts for the evening: Kirsty, Eilidh & their friend Lisa, assisted by some mad witch woman and a vampirey shopkeeper.
Those brave enough were invited to put their hand into a box of slimy gunge and remove an eyeball, and here's Calli doing just that.
We had children queuing at the door for most of the evening, and handed out 75 bags of sweeties to a fabulous collection of witches, monsters and all sorts. In amongst all the jokes we were told, there were also two songs and a poem. It wasn't just kiddies coming in - one of the songs was brilliantly performed by these big guisers!
I don't know whether we'll be able to repeat this next year - ideally that room will be part of the shop by then, but it was certainly lots of fun last night!
