How many days until Halloween?

Halloween lands on 31 October, and Britain's version of it has grown enormously over the past thirty years without ever quite shaking off its imported feel. Trick or treating is now normal in most residential streets, pumpkin patches have turned into weekend outings, and October brings school discos, ghost tours and horror seasons at the cinema.

The timing helps. The clocks go back on the last Sunday of October, so by the 31st it is properly dark before six o'clock — the first year in which evenings feel genuinely long and black. Households that want visitors put a lit pumpkin in the window; the ones that would rather not simply leave the porch light off, an unspoken code most streets follow.

Older layers still show through. Samhain marked the end of the harvest in the Gaelic calendar, and turnip lanterns were carved in Scotland and Ireland long before pumpkins arrived. Apple bobbing survives at parties, and All Saints' Day follows on 1 November for those who mark it.

Halloween sits five days before Bonfire Night, which makes the start of November an unusually busy stretch of the year for anyone with children. This page counts to the midnight at the start of 31 October, so a countdown showing a few hours left means the day itself is about to begin rather than end.