The Hallowe'en that wasn't

I love Hallowe'en so it was a big disappointment to me when my husband told me that he had a work commitment that would keep him away overnight on the day that the veil between worlds was thin. I was going to carry on regardless with a slightly scaled down celebration that would also incorporate a fancy dress run for me with my Running Club.

Disappointment revisited.

A cold that has been threatening to grab me by it's evil viral hands finally delivered. The last thing I need with a sinus headache and uncontrollable outbursts of explosive sneezing, is exercise. The only running I'll be doing is out of my eyes and nose. On top of that, my poor little Addy is not at all well.

Addy was supposed to be going to a friend's house this afternoon for spooky arts & crafts and cookies. Unfortunately, she did this instead :

I put on my new pumpkin orange T shirt, skeleton socks and vampire necklace..... lay down on the sofa and looked not dissimilar to my daughter in the photograph above!

It's 5 o'clock in the evening now and dark outside. Normally, our Hallowe'en festivities would be in full swing. Not so this year.

But ever the optimist, all is not lost.

My daughter, Taylor, is coming home from Uni this weekend. We are going to celebrate with fireworks and friends and food and there is absolutely no reason why we can't throw our Hallowe'en eggs into the same basket. These fellows will still be there to preside over events:

Paper Mache skull

Hand print spider!

My wonderful daughter Charis refused to let October 31st go by without some spooky baking and took it upon herself to get busy in the kitchen. I have yet to see the results.

If the bakes served up by Charis fail to cheer me, my final fall back is my bottle of Pumpkin beer tucked innocently away on a  shelf in my larder.

I will definitely be digging out the bottle opener and enjoying this later, probably during tonight's episode of Dallas. JR Ewing is surely good for a Hallowe'en scare.

A Pumpkin Sort of Day

I'm loving that it is half term and Hallowe'en. I have a couple of family parties that I'm planning for (which will involve lots of baking) and I am busy getting in the mood with some arts and crafts with the kids.

Today we have carved pumpkins and had a go at some hand print spiders. The pumpkins turned out great. The spiders? Well, the less said about them the better. Suffice it to say there was an awful lot of mess and not a lot to show for it! On the plus side, the kids did enjoy smearing the gooey black paint everywhere.

Addy drew the design on with a wipe board marker and I helped her carve it.

Once our hands were cleaned (which took an awful lot longer to do than it took to write that), we treated ourselves to a girlie manicure (even little Dylan offered his finger nails for varnish).

Addy wanted a pumpkin design nail art (it was definitely a pumpkin sort of day) so I searched through my collection of nail varnish and found an orange one. It had actually come in a Strictly Come Dancing nail polish set that I had impulse purchased in the January sales. The orange shade was romantically called Cha Cha. I have never used it nor do I think that by doing so my performance in Latin dance would be enhanced but as far as our pumpkin nail requirements went - it was exactly what we needed.

I was surprised that I had no black nail varnish to paint the Jack o' Lantern faces. Black nail varnish is my favourite. I wore it all the time as teenager and wore it on my wedding day in honour of those teenage years when I first met the man I was about to marry.

We improvised. We used a sharpie marker. It wasn't brilliant but it was good enough.

I'm going out for a run later. I don't know if I am alarmed or delighted that my pumpkin nails perfectly match my new high vis orange running shirt!

Knit Your Own Zombie

The chill in the air and the carpet of autumn leaves is leaving no doubt as to the time of year and Hallowe'en is very nearly upon us. Usually by now, my house would be decorated and parties planned but I have been very slow to get going for some reason I have yet to fathom. I have, though, completed a craft project which combines my love of the macabre with my knitting hobby and made this handsome little fella.

The pattern is from Fiona Goble's Knit Your Own Zombie which I highly recommend (should you have any leaning towards knitting needles, yarn and the undead).

The protruding entrails do detach completely from the 'gut pocket' leaving plenty of room to insert a brown rat should you desire. I have made the rat but my personal preference is for the guts. I just love the colour!

One day I may progress onto sensible and useful hats, gloves, scarves and jumpers but for now, I'm having far too much fun.