Is the Spooky Halloween spirit still alive?! Of corpse it is!

As a child nothing was quite as exciting as the anticipation of Halloween night. There is a certain point toward the end of September when the night time becomes more gloomy and the moon seems much more eerie. From the moment you spot that first pile of golden leaves get violently swooped up by the sharp wind and rattle through the air a foreboding thrill would be cast among the child version of ourselves as we were once again reminded it was that time of year again where ghosts and goblins lurked in every corner. Nothing could compete with that sort of exhilaration.

Even through that brief  point in my early teens where I thought I was too cool to dress up (I now cringe at what I deemed "cool" at this period.) I still had a little thrill in picking out the perfect pumpkin,gutting it and carving a ghastly face into it.While the fun of dressing up was always there the spine chilling magic of the night itself seemed to have waned a little as each year nothing brought back or came close to satisfying the fiendish thrills of  those Halloween nights long lost. That was until this year.

This years Pumpkins Fester N. Rot (Left) & Roger Spookyball (Right)

Nothing seems to bring terror to people (including myself) than the prospect of a zombie invasion. Sure many scorn (and yes this is also me) "that it could never happen" but there's always that tiny voice in the back of everyone's  mind that asks "what if?". This is the same part of the brain that turns a coat in the wardrobe into a murderous creature and any squeak into your immanent and undoubtedly violent death when alone in the house at night. Combing this with my unhealthy obsession with the series "The Walking Dead" the news that the Cork Zombie walk was to return this Halloween weekend made for a very excitable self!  I have to say the event lived up to every expectation I had of it, and believe me there was a lot!Not only did I recover the spookiness and wickedness of this time of year I feared was long gone but I also found a new tradition to add alongside pumpkin carving. There's a wicked glee to be found dressing up as the un-dead and wandering around in swarms through Cork city trying to and happily succeeding in terrorizing onlookers.

Getting our scare on at Cork Zombie Walk 2011

Even though Halloween has been put to rest for another year at least I can feel reassured that I will still be able to get my hair raising fix with my favourite zombie show,  for the next few weeks anyway, right up until the Christmas count down...Upon reading that last sentence I think I may have a slight obsession with celebrating certain public holidays...Oh dear.