Scare conditioning

While shops and influencers hyping Halloween in August is cynical marketing, after a stifling summer a few early autumn chills are a more welcome sight

- SUSAN LEE Columnist

BECAUSE I am now middle-aged, there is nothing I love more than spending an hour in a decent garden centre, preferably one with a home interiors section and a nice cafe.

I know. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, there I was wandering around the scented candle display when I came across an entire wall dedicated to autumn and to Halloween.

There were pumpkins and scarecrows and mini skeleton bunting.

For a moment I wondered if I had been subjected to some kind of time slip, this being the first week of August, but no; social media informs me this is the trend known as Summerween.