I fulfilled a long-held ambition last week by dressing up for Halloween and going out trick-or-treating with the children. Well, after a fashion.

As recounted last week, being off work for half-term meant I had time on my hands to create some bespoke Halloween costumes for our son and daughter.

Daughter was easy – for her zombie schoolgirl outfit, all I had to do was spray some red and green food dye on an old shirt, rip up some trousers and colour her face with white, blue and red face paints. I tell you, if George A Romero had seen it, I’d probably be working in Hollywood right now on some horror flick.

The boy, as ever, was slightly more ambitious – he wanted to go as a character from his favourite cartoon, Adventure Time, which involved me sitting up one night sewing a sort of trapper hat with little white ears (horns? Not quite sure) from a white fleecy throw bought from Primark. I was pretty proud of the results, I tell you.

Son, being of an age when he wants some independence, went out for a bit with his friends with strict warnings not to bother old people, Christians, or suspected serial killers, and only to go to places that were obviously in the Halloween spirit, such as 1313 Mockingbird Lane and other such horror-iffic addresses.

As an aside to that, the next day brought a gaggle of Jehovah’s Witnesses to the street who were obviously carrying out some reverse-Halloween targeting of their own, going up to houses with carved pumpkins on display, such as ours.

As I have cunningly not fixed the doorbell for the past year, they stood in vain on the step while I hid behind the sofa, and I only emerged once I heard the plop on the doormat of a leaflet which was banging on about death and spooks and the afterlife, signalling that they had moved on to the next heathen household.

But back to Halloween. Zombie girl wanted to go out trick-or-treating as well, and, as she is a bit younger than Finn from Adventure Time, I had to take her. But why should I not have a costume, I reasoned?

Thus, as son returned with a bag of loot and said he’d come with us as well, I emerged from the bathroom in my hastily-assembled Halloween outfit.

The sudden stunned silence and looks of horror on the faces of Mrs B and the children suggested to me that I’d done a good job, but I was swiftly told that my impromptu costume was not in the least bit impressive.

How two loo rolls wrapped round my legs, arms, torso and head and taped into place could not look impressive, I have no idea. But if there was a better Egyptian mummy on Halloween night in our street, I didn’t see it.

We set off to bother the neighbours, my son finding it hysterical but my daughter fairly burning with embarrassment. In fact, I’ve never seen a zombie move so fast.