Halloween is one of my favourite times of the year to decorate the house. The first year I was at the lighthouse on October 31st I decided I would decorate for the season. The first thing I noticed in Shetland they do not seem to get into big outside holiday decorations even for Christmas. There are two good reasons. First, electricity is so expensive you cannot afford to have extensive electric lights on for long periods of time. Second and probably the most important is anything put outside could blow away in the gales which are beginning to be more frequent in late fall and can be counted on for winter.

Undaunted I still wanted to decorate the inside of the house and at least put something in the window. So off to Lerwick I went to find 'scary things.' The first few stores I went to did not have anything 'Halloweeny.' Use to the glut of decorations available back in the States for Halloween, I was totally amazed I could not find anything.

My next tact was to get a pumpkin at the grocery and make a Jack-o-lantern. Except - they had no pumpkins.

This was getting really serious. I wanted at least a Jack-o-lantern so my search continued. After having gone into about every store in Lerwick I had to stop and get some medicine. When I entered the pharmacy I spied a small plastic jack-o-lantern behind the counter. Rushing over I asked if it was for sale. The clerk was not sure so she had to check with the manager. I paced the floor while she looked for the manager. Returning with the manager they told me they had not planned on selling the decoration. My disappointment must have shown on my face or maybe they were afraid this pensioner was going to break down and cry right there at the counter because they gave me the small plastic orange pumpkin. I was over the moon with joy.

Rushing home I put placed my plastic pumpkin on top of a small night light and it glowed just like the real thing. My only disappointment was because of the way the light was placed I could not set it on the window. Sitting by the Rayburn with a cup of coffee it dawned on me that putting it in the window was rather ridiculous anyway. We hardly ever have anyone around the lighthouse at night. Besides, the magnificent light revolving above the house made my tiny pumpkin in a window very insignificant.

So I put it on the table for my own personal enjoyment. Looking at it I wondered if we could put clear orange plastic on the inside of lantern room's windows and have a gigantic Halloween decoration. The Northern Lighthouse Board would more than likely veto that idea immediately so I added to my list of things to bring from the USA next trip one LARGE plastic jack-o-lantern.

Sharma

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You can find more articles in the archive under Island Miniatures/Lighthouse Letters.

I have three books which are directly related to this column. The Last Lighthouse tells how we bought our lighthouse, the day by day journal of a year at Eshaness entitled A Year in the Lighthouse and in Scottish Lighthouses our lighthouse is featured in the 31 lighthouses presented. You can find out more about these books and others I have written at my official author web site.