AS if I didn't have enough to do. The message, passed on by a colleague at work, was scribbled on a note and left on my desk: "Please ring the Grim Reaper at home - URGENT."

At first, I wondered if it was a sign that I was about to die. Maybe this was how it was done - you get a message to ring Mr Reaper and he takes it from there. Come to think of it, I hadn't been feeling at all well. "Could I speak to the Grim Reaper please?" I asked, hestitantly after dialling my home number.

"Hi Dad - it's me. Could you pop out to Woolworths and get me a scythe. I'm going to the Halloween party tomorrow night and I'm going as the Grim Reaper - you know, death."

"A scythe? Yeah, right," I replied. Woolies didn't have any scythes. They'd either sold out or never had any in the first place - it wasn't clear. And, to make things worse, they didn't know who might sell them.

"Did you get my scythe Dad?" the Grim Reaper asked the next morning over breakfast.

"Oh sorry - they didn't have any."

Mr Reaper's face turned grim and he gave me a cutting look. My response was rash: "Don't worry - I'll make you one at work and bring it home before the party."

The Grim Reaper smiled broadly. The Dim Creeper went off to work and called in at the shop on the way to buy some cooking foil. Sue is my personal assistant but nowhere in her job description does it mention helping to make scythes for The Grim Reaper. Nevertheless, she was ready to help and I breathed a scythe of relief. The long wooden pole used to close the office windows was commandeered - far too long but the only available option - and a curved blade was neatly cut out of an old piece of cardboard. The blade was taped to the pole and then lovingly covered in the cooking foil.

The easy bit was over. The hard bit was getting it out of the office without the big boss - and I mean the big boss - noticing. He was on his monthly visit from London, and it would have taken a great deal of explanation.

He was about to leave the building and Old Father Time was showing no mercy - the Halloween Party was starting all too soon.

As the big boss made his way down the front stairs, me and the scythe legged it down the back staircase. Never before have The Grim Reaper's dad and an outsized scythe moved with such reckless haste and several people were forced to duck for their lives before we made it out of the building and across the road to the car park.

If the big boss had looked up, he might just have caught a glimpse of me screeching round the corner with the cooking foil end of the scythe sticking out of the passenger window.

"Wow, Dad. That's the most brilliant scythe ever. You're the greatest Dad that ever lived," said Grim as I burst breathlessly through the door with minutes to spare. "Yeah Dad, that's brilliant," his little brother chipped in. Did you make me one? I left you a message at work."

The silence was deathly.

THE THINGS MUMS SAY...

MOVING house is my idea of hell on earth. The removal company had only sent two men to do the moving when we were expecting six. And since we were on an hourly rate, there was nothing else for it - I'd have to join in and help as much as I could.

From 8.30am to 8pm, I humped box after box up and down the stairs. We finally sat down with a glass of wine at the end of a day which nearly killed me and my wife turned to me and said: "Cor blimey - those two lads worked really hard, didn't they?"

No, she wasn't joking