Trick or treat? (Obligatory Halloween post)

I can't remember the age at which I stopped trick-or-treating.

I remember it was the same year that my brother stopped, even though he's three years younger than I am. It's also the same year that my parents stopped giving out sweets to trick-or-treaters. We used to turn of the lights and go to the cinema to get away from them.

We live in an area where it is not unusual to have your house egged if you ignore them, but it they seem to have gotten tamer in recent years and it seems to be an unwritten Halloween rule that if the lights are off they will assume that you're not in.

I lived in the same house for 15 years. Having studied memory, I know that that is as long as I can remember. We did live in a flat before that but I wasn't old enough at that time.

When you've been going trick-or-treating on the same street for at least a decade, you learn a little something about the people that live in the same place as you. You know which ones are 'never in', you know who gives the best sweets, who is likely to trick you, who will be dressed up as well, who will give you money and even the exact house that the old man who gives you the tangerine lives in. You know which houses have different people in from last year, who has a dog and who has kids and roughly how old they are.

I didn't realise until recently that you learn something about your neighbours on Halloween that you wouldn't learn any other time of the year. It also doesn't seem to be as useful as anything you would learn any other day of the year, but the point still stands.

The last year I went trick-or-treating I went with my best friend at the time in her estate rather than my own. It's a refreshing experience when you go trick-or-treating somewhere new, and you get all new sweets and new faces but I can't help but think back and think that I should have done my last round in my own street, for the memories more than anything else, but as is life.

This year I went out with my best friend. We dressed up (like the big kids that we are at heart), and we went out clubbing and got drunk in fancy dress. My skirt was so short she spent the entire night following me around pulling it down but overall the whole experience was good.

I don't know when the shift happened. Less than half a decade ago I was dressed as a much more innocent looking; last minute, makeshift zombie; with a different best friend asking strangers for sweets and we fast forward to the 18 year old me in the shortest skirt of my life and a pair of fishnet tights and high heeled boots (which did not last all night I will tell you now).

In Mean Girls, they say that 'Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.' When does this occur? When do you stop seeing Halloween as a fun way to get free sweets and start seeing it as an 'excuse' to dress like a slut and get drunk?

I mean, from what I've seen, most people don't need an excuse.

I'm not going to go into if I think it is begging and if children should do it and some of the extreme measures I've seen mentioned regarding it (laxative chocolate so they won't call again next year) because I don't think it's worth the debate. For me Halloween has always been fun and I think that is what it will stay as.

My definition of fun has just changed considerably since I was 5.

How old?

Last week I spoke about some primary school girls and said they looked about 8. Last night I realised that I actually don't properly know how to estimate the age of anyone I meet - and have a particular problem with children (my earlier point about these girls still stands because they cannot be older than 11).

When I see a child I don't know if they should be in nursery or if they should be going to school or what level of school they should be at. I don't know at what age children would start talking, when they would be able to read or if they'd be interested in me reading to them. Which book should I read? I get very confused around young children.

When they reach about the age of 4 I am usually okay because - at least from the experiences I have with the children in my best friend's family - they tend to like me and want to talk to me and tell me what they want. If they want me to read to them they will usually present me with a book. If they want to engage in creative play I will usually be assigned a role by them and I can easily fulfil this. And at that age I can usually understand them and what they want me to do.

But at any age before this I am simply lost.

I try to draw on my own experience when trying to establish how old a child is and what it is that they will likely enjoy or want me to do - but I'm not sure when I learned to talk or read or walk or any of the developmental milestones that children go through. I'm not sure I was old enough to remember when my mum first started reading to me - but I do know that she started early; which explains a lot. Even if I had this information I'm not sure I can really generalise from my own case a lot of the time because I was a quick learner. I have seen pictures of myself from when I was very young (I couldn't tell you how old!) and I am playing with letter fridge magnets. I sort of remember learning the alphabet at about the age of 3 or 4 but I don't know if this is typical.

A similar problem arises when I'm watching programs such as '10 Years Younger'. They ask you to estimate the age of the person before and after the makeover. I realise that I can't do that either. What does a 40 year old look like? How can we have these estimates when we're always talking about people who look young for their age and comparing them with people who look older than they are. If nobody who is 40 actually 'looks 40', then how do we know what 40 'looks like'. And the same with any other age.

At least a part of this problem will be in the rise of plastic surgery and expensive creams and the fact that make-up can hide a multitude of sins. But I still stand by my point.

Is estimating ages something that most people can do or do other people get the same problems as I do? It seems to be that everyone else does it with little effort.

Currently listening: Parrot Stories - Alex Day