Who's that at the door?

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore; while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door. Only this, and nothing more.'

So begins Edgar Allen Poe's chilling poem, The raven. Late-night tappings on the door are disquieting.

Even more disquieting is a thunderous, flat-handed thumping, resounding in the cool night air like a thunderclap.

For a moment we both remain at the supper table, stunned. As I finally get to my feet I run a mental survey of the possibilities. Jehovah's Witnesses? No, they tippety-tap with squidgy fingertips. Luzma, our near neighbour, with a bag of surplus bananas or mangoes from the farm? No, she does a down-to-earth knuckle rap.

The last time we heard anyone hammer on the door like this it was two officers of the Guardia Civil, Spain's national police force, wanting directions to someone else's house. The Guardia are generally affable people these days, but they haven't shaken off the Franco-era habit of trying to break down your door. Could this be them again, the Guardia? But so late in the evening? Shouldn't they all be in a bar somewhere by now, watching football?

A touch nervously, I open the door. Dark outside. Nobody there. I poke my head out to look around.

A dozen black shapes leap into the light spilling from the door, screaming and waving their arms. They have white faces, black-rimmed eyes and lips the colour of fresh blood. Most are elfin small but a few larger and fiercer ones lurk at the back beneath tall, pointy hats.

Through the death-mask paint I detect familiar faces, the local kids. Now they're all waving little paper shopping bags at me, the kind you get when you buy expensive perfume or a new iPhone, but the bags have been painted in sinister purples and blacks and each bears the scrawled legend Trick or Treat. Written in English.

That was the first time it happened, a good few years ago. Now it's every year, on the thirty-first of October, Halloween. At this stage of the performance - bags waving under my nose, demanding a present - I always suffer a brief but painful internal battle.

Mr Grumpy: This is terrible, this has to be resisted! This has nothing to do with Gomeran folk culture! Nothing to do with the Canary Islands, nothing to do with Spain, nothing to do with Europe!

Mr Nice: Oh come on, they're just kids.

Mr Grumpy (warming up for a rant): If it's anything at all it's American, but I doubt it has much to do with USA folk culture either. It's twenty-first century aggression. Trick or treat, see! Give me a present or I'll make you suffer!

Mr Nice: But look at all the trouble they've gone to, dressing up. And the excitement in their faces. They're enjoying themselves.

The bags are waving closer to my nose and the kids are yelling 'Treek o trait, treek o trait!' at this dim Englishman. Get on with it, give us the treat!

Mr Grumpy (metaphorically waving stick): Extortion with menaces. Robbery!

Mr Nice: You churlish old fossil. You've done it too. Don't you remember the fifth of November, Guy Fawkes night? When you went round knocking on doors and wheeling an old pushchair with a stuffed potato sack sitting in it - 'Penny for the Guy, missus'?

Mr Grumpy: That was entirely different, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament and deserved to be honoured. This lot are just demanding something for nothing.

One way to avoid this annual ambivalence is to go out for the evening and leave the house in darkness. A very cowardly solution, though, and it doesn't work anyway because they'll wrap several metres of toilet roll around our bikes as a mark of disdain, a symbol of shame: these people are mean!

So we've taken to arming ourselves in advance with handfuls of caramelos, boiled sweets, which - no, no, we don't hurl them at the kids, goodness gracious! - which we drop into their bags, a couple of sweeties each, while pretending to be scared out of our wits and in fear of our lives. It sort of works, some of the ghouls giggle, although I'm sure they'd much rather we dropped a couple of euros into their bags instead.

Intimidation! Threats! Mugging!

Oh, shut up.

Notes for the serious student
Spain has traditionally celebrated Halloween but tricks, treats and boiled sweets are a relatively new arrival.

The last day of October is technically Día de las Brujas, Witches' Day, although nobody seems to call it that nowadays. The first day of November is Día de Todos los Santos, All Saints' Day, which is of course a national holiday. You can't travel far through the Spanish calendar without coming across a national holiday.