Boograms

As the four of us we were having our dinner tonight, there was a very loud and menacing knock at the door. Once we had landed on our seats again and recovered our senses, I went to the front door, only to see someone jumping into a car and racing off. On the doorstep at my feet lay an orange, plastic, pumpkin-shaped bag with a piece of paper sticking out of it.

We had received our very first boogram.

A boogram is a mysterious note, usually in the form of a poem, left anonymously by your friends or neighbours in the run-up to Hallowe'en and accompanied by gifts or sweets for the household's children as well as a large sign that shows that you've been hit. The latter you are intended to hang on your front door - a bit like a cross indicating there's Black Death in the house - to prevent yourself being boo'd again.

Boograms are a bit like a nice version of the chain letter because the poem/note instructs you to send boograms to and thereby bestow gifts upon two other neighbours. Apparently, in some instances all the houses in the street end up with a boo sign on their doors, and it gets pretty difficult finding someone to "ambush" in this way. You are therefore encouraged to be proactive and get in there early.

Having put the kids to bed, my wife rushed out to a supermarket and bought two boogram sets (of course they had everything in stock; from boo paper to boo bags, boo signs and boo candy), while I hastily penned two personalised boograms for our intended victims. Unfortunately, it turned out that the house of one of our target families already sported the "boo off" sign, so we quickly had to adapt their poem for a Plan B alternative. I then hopped on my bike and cycled over to the first family (whose house we had never visited).

The lack of street lighting and a moonless night helped conceal my presence, but it also hid the house number and letterbox so completely that I spent a frustrating 10 minutes going up and down the road, sneaking up paths and approaching front doors in an increasingly desparate search for the number, using the faint illumination of my iPhone display as a rather pathetic torch. I even tried pinpointing the house with my in-phone sat-nav, to no avail. I finally chose what I hoped was the right address, deposited my poem and bag, gave a menacing rat-a-tat-tat on the bug screen and fled.

I still don't know if I got the right house. And because the boogrammer is supposed to keep his identity secret, I'll never be able to ask them whether they got my goody-bag. But it was hugely exciting in a Just William, postman's knock kind of way.

Tomorrow we go off with the kids to deliver our other boogram. Let's hope we find the house this time.