Darker nights are drawing in, there’s a hint of a chill in the air and the supermarket’s seasonal aisles are groaning with spooky paraphernalia. Halloween is coming. Every year about now, I tell myself I’m going to get my hands on a pumpkin and bake a pie like the ones my mum would make with us when we were little.

Halloween wasn’t a huge deal in our house, and neither was baking, but I hold warm memories of helping my mum go through the steps that led us to one delicious latticed pumpkin pie and one ugly jack o’lantern that we would display in the window with pride.

As I got older, Halloween became an excuse to ride around on my bike looking for trouble or going to parties wearing risque outfits under the guise of them being “costumes”. Now, along with that proliferation of Halloween tat in the shops – mountains of plastic ghosts and witches, destined for landfill – cafe chains try to exploit my olfactory memory with pumpkin spice in every product. Simple magic has been lost, life has moved on and I realise I’ve never followed through on making that pie.

Now I’m a mum to twin toddlers, which means my........

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