Smashing Pumpkins

Our guests really got into the Halloween spirit today with a spot of pumpkin carving.

Orphan No 1 hard at work
Style turned his into a real work of art

A Halloween treat. A white pumpkin filled with popcorn brains and gummy worm maggots.

The rat, meanwhile, is real.

500th Entry: Grumpy Rides Again

My apologies to any regular readers who've been wondering why there have been so few entries this week. The reason is that this is my 500th entry and I wanted to make sure it was something deep and meaningful. Since that hasn't proved possible, I've posted these pictures instead. It's Grumpy's Halloween costume. What else could he go as? Thanks to this blog and my column, the whole town now knows him as Grumpy, in fact for Christmas I'm thinking of changing his name officially.

Who's that driving Grumpy's car?

It's Grumpy of course!

"Why couldn't we just buy a plastic garden gnome?"

"Will you get on with it and take the photo already? Don't know why they call me Grumpy"

Happy Halloween Everyone

Delightful Disguises

It's not only adults who dress up for Halloween. Today was Naperville's annual trick or treat event, when little children are encouraged to visit the local stores and collect candy.

Here's a boo-tiful little fairy
These two were simply spellbinding

"Poo, Ariel. I know you're a method actress, but did you have to fill your bag with fish?"

Hope he doesn't grow up to be the Elephant Man!

"How humiliating. I wanted to be a labrador."

"Is it time for the trunk show?"

"Help, I'm being attacked by a killer bee!"

Surprisingly, the biggest crowd was drawn by a local children's dentist. He was giving away I Pods and balloons. Guess he'll be the busiest guy in town when all that candy has been eaten.

Open for Business

The proprietors of the Haunted Hotel Decent prepare to welcome their latest guests.

Fright Night

Thought you'd like to see some photos of my new friends. Tonight was the first night of All Hallow's Eve at the Naper Settlement. It was a great night. We even had a real thunderstorm, which was very atmospheric, if somewhat wet. This year I was out in the field as Griselda the overacting witch. I proved to be a great hit with the little girls, some of whom I even taught spells around the cauldron. The older girls complimented me on my grey curls, wild hat, false eyelashes and nails, but I did feel a little put on when they remarked on my big nose. It was my own.

It'll take more than Tide to Go to get rid of those stains
It'll never get better if you pick it

Frankenstein

Dracula swaps blood for pizza

The brother of the master of the haunted house

Some witches create a ghostly aura wherever they go

The Return of Tufty

I give up! Since replacing our juicy pumpkins with plastic ones, we've had no more trouble from Tufty. Today I returned home to find him sitting on the lap of Mr Bones, our Halloween skeleton currently rocking on our porch. That in itself didn't bother me. It was that he was chewing through the cobwebs which anchor him to the chair.

England 1-U.S.A. 0

I've often written about my view of American sport, but it didn't occur to me until today what the Americans must think of ours.
At today's Rotary lunch the guest speaker was the girls' soccer coach from Waubonsie High School. Like most Naperville teams they are top in their field, pardon the pun. Many of the audience didn't know much about soccer and seemed amazed that the teams play for 45 minutes without a break.
American sportsmen don't seem to be able to last five minutes without stopping. Baseball games are so disjointed they have to employ entertainers to keep the crowds awake in between sessions. Even the final minute of a football game can stop every five seconds or so. Personally I think there is no excuse for this. If they didn't drink so much before the game they wouldn't need to keep running off to the men's room, or whatever it is they do.
"So what happens if new players are brought on?" asked one amazed Rotarian. "Don't you stop the game?"
They do, but only for a couple of seconds to give the referee time to pull up his socks.
They seemed astonished at the physical stamina of a player who can keep going for two 45 minute halves, plus extra time in event of a draw.
"Not only that," they explained. "But the players have to run all the way down to the end of the field and all the way back to the other end thoughout the game." I always took that for granted, but its not what happens in American football, where they run between lines marked on the field.
Perhaps soccer is a more interesting game than I thought.

Haunted Hotel

The Haunted Hotel Decent is proud to announce it is now open for business, in fact our first guest are due in at the weekend, when Orphan No 1 and Dumb Bell Door make a return visit with a new friend.

The proprietors, Grumpy and Hilary Deceased have spent a fortune on updating the hotel for the holiday season.

We haven't had any guests since July, and in this economy it's been a real problem.

On the plus side, Grumpy's diet has been going exceptionally well

The Haunted Hotel Decent's cook prides herself on using the freshest ingredients raised on the premises.

All rooms have wireless access to the web

Safety is our prime concern, so we employ a night witchman.

Which Witch?

She's baa-aak. With less than two weeks to go before Halloween , this evening I dusted off my alter ego Griselda. Griselda is the witch I become when I go to the Naper Settlement, thankfully not every time, just for Halloween. Last year she was a Shakespearean witch dancing around the cauldron reciting lines from the Scottish play. This year she's taken her cauldron outside to terrorize visitors waiting in line at the annual Fright Nights which take place on Friday and Saturday this week.
Tonight's dress rehearsal was great fun. Fortunately the Americans are easily impressed by both my natural British accent and my supernatural witch accent. There is nothing stranger than chatting with a bunch of ghouls, mummies, pirates and monsters as if its an everyday occurance to dress up.
I'll post pictures at the end of the week, but if you'd like to see Grumpy and myself overacting for all we're worth (and to be honest it's not a lot) do come along to the event.
For more details look at http://www.napersettlement.org/calendar/All%20Hallows%20Eve.html where you might see a familiar green face.

Would You Like Stiff Upper Chips With That Sir?

I have to admit I make a conscious effort to avoid other ex pats living in Naperville. After all, if I wanted to mix with the British, I would have stayed in England. Although there are a fair few of us here, I don't often stumble across them, which is fine by me.
But this lunchtime I came across a whole group of Englishmen, in somewhat surreal circumstances.
I met Grumpy for a quick lunch in Schmaltz's deli. Schmaltz's is the nearest thing we have to a New York deli here in Naperville. It's a lively place with assistants shouting out orders and customers telling them to hold the mustard, that kind of thing.
So you can imagine my surprise when I suddenly heard not one, but quite a few English accents. I looked round to see a group of teenagers ordering sandwiches. Now I know I haven't heard a good British accent for a while, but these boys put me to shame.
Those of you who know me might think I have quite a "posh" accent. But I sounded like Eliza Doolittle before she was discovered by 'Enry 'Iggins in comparison.
What was even more surprising, was that in the middle of the group was a familiar face, none other than Scott Harper, the local Democratic candidate for Congress.
This is where the story gets even more odd. I recognised Scott not because I know him from his campaign, but because last summer he stopped outside my house when he saw me rocking on my porch. Turns out he grew up in our house, and was very impressed with all our remodelling work.
Anyhow, I asked him how come he was surrounded by a group of unusually well behaved English youth.
"They're over here for a few days because they are studying the American political system," he explained. "They're all students at Eton."
For any American who doesn't know, Eton is Prince William's old school. That would certainly explain why they were so polite. Most English schoolboys would knock you to the ground in pursuit of a sandwich.
Not one to miss any opportunity, I flung out a handful of business cards to the boys in case they wanted to read my blog. Maybe we Brits should stick together after all...

In the Soup

Only Naperville would run an upmarket soup kitchen for its well to do residents! Actually it was the Rotary club's way of fundraising in a novel way. Soup's On raised around $70,000 for the hungry by selling tickets to an event where you could eat samples from local restaurants.

The Duke and Duchess of Douglas Avenue swap their tea cups for soup cups.
Hyacinth McCain discovers her cup is big enough to hold the contents on two cans of Coke, but there's not enough room for water

Divine and Spike swap their martini glasses for soup mugs.

Halloween is a great time for

Death by Chocolate Cake

Nature Walk

Here are a few scenes of beautiful Herrick Lake, a local beauty spot about 10 minutes away from where we live. It may not be quite as pretty as New England, but it's just as nice as parts of old England.

Curtain Up

Today we were delighted to be part of a very special, very Naperville, event - the dedication of the new Wentz Concert Hall at North Central College. Come with us as we are among the first to look inside the impressive new building.
What is perhaps most surprising is not that a little town like Naperville can now boast a world class concert hall, but that the entire $30 million cost was raised entirely by local benefactors. It's typical of Naperville's 'can do' attitude that it could pull off an ambitious project like this.

Here I am talking to Brian Lynch, North Central's Fine Arts Director.

The building is deceptively spacious on the inside compared with how it appears on the outside.

It boasts a 605 seat concert hall, a black box theatre, an art gallery and rehearsal space and facilities for its students. It will be used for a mixture of college and world class performances.
Backstage are various classrooms and studios. As you can see, the staff are drawn from the best showbiz families.

Don't worry, there aren't any closet Nazis in Naperville as far as I know. This is the wardrobe for the students' latest production - The Diary of Anne Frank.

The building was formally dedicated in a moving ceremony recognising all those who helped to achieve the college's dream.

Chief benefactors were presented with medals, like this one received by Rita Harvard

Here's the auditorium before the dedication.

The college's concert choir.

And finally, the ribbon cutting ceremony. In a theatrical statement, the ribbon was pulled across the top of the auditorium by two students as trumpeters played a fanfare. It was lowered so it could be officially cut by Dr Myron Wentz, whom the hall is named after.
Let me let you into a little insider secret. Although the giant scissors looked great, they couldn't actually cut, so Brian Lynch snipped away while Dr Wentz held them up for effect.

Although the Wentz is brand new, it is not replacing the other theatres that the college has in Naperville. So although we have this magnificent modern building, just around the corner is Pfeiffer Hall, a very traditional 2,000 seat theatre built in 1926 with only two female toilets! As someone said, the Wentz is a Pfeiffer Hall for the 21st century.