The witching hour is almost upon us - from trick-or-treating to perfect pumpkins and creepy costumes. Stacia Briggs plans a frightfully good Halloween.

It's that time of year when spooks and spirits are said to roam but Halloween is all about having fun so here are four things to do.

1 Try your hand at apple-bobbing. All you need is some apples, a couple of towels and a bucket or bowl full of water. Younger children may need to hold the bowl edges in order to grab their apple with their teeth, but older children and adults should keep their hands behind their backs to make the task as difficult as possible!

2 A slightly less healthy version of apple bobbing is the ring doughnut game. Put plastic sheeting down (or try this in the garage or garden!) and attach a string from one side of the room to another, threading on doughnuts as you go. Make sure you think about how tall your guests are and, if you want to make the game even more difficult, suggest people try their luck with a blindfold on.

3 Make sure any food you serve is suitably gruesome – all it may need is a little imagination and some renaming. Popcorn becomes bat brains, raisins are bloated ants, tortilla chips are shrivelled dragon wings – you get the idea!

4 Children will love the Gruesome box game, where you make a Halloween feel-box full of everyday items that feel revolting if you can't see what you're touching. Blindfold your victim or use a box covered with a cloth and then tell them what it is they're touching –some ideas include Twiglets (petrified rat rails), cold spaghetti (worms), peeled grapes (eyeballs), a soft flour tortilla covered in a little vegetable oil (skin), pieces of sweetcorn (rotten teeth), boiled head of cabbage (brain), raisins (witch warts), dried apple slices (ears), cocktail sausages or baby carrots (fingers).

The only limit is your imagination!

All costumes and props from Asda in Drayton High Road. Asda has an entire aisle of ghoulishly good Halloween costumes, party props, sweets and novelty items, from a walking broomstick to the Vampiress costume seen in our picture, skeleton candles and holders to feathered ravens, pumpkin fairy lights to sinister clown outfits and much more. The costumes seen in our pictures range in price from �10 to �15 (cape �5).