Ruth and Kev’s Hallowe’en-cum-housewarming fancy-dress party demonstrated once again the creativity of East Anglians. We may not have big venues, motorways, or generous funding for our way of life but we still have fun over here on the North Sea flood plains.

I made my usual batch of date slices and flapjacks – not exactly The Great British Bake-Off but the best I could do without the risk of a “soggy bottom”.

We arrived to find a number of the undead were already there (and that was before they started drinking) and soon the place was swarming with nightmarish characters and a few pumpkins.

My husband went as a zombie businessman. He applied lashings of fake blood to a shirt and tie. The kitchen looked as if Mrs Lovett had used it for a bit of pie filling. I, as my husband’s trophy zombie wife, used a packet of stick-on maggots to suggest decomposition.

Unfortunately, many of them became unstuck and fell into my cleavage. My husband observed it wasn’t a bad way to go.