You can view this post in one of two ways. Either I am late for 2012 or early for 2013…
Halloween. On Tuesday I was busy preparing food for a curry evening and Tim was given the job of carving the pumpkins. In the kitchen Tim is regarded as ‘unskilled labour’, so is generally given any job that Gaynor doesn’t fancy doing!
His and Hers!
Rhiannon and Stuart carved these in the UK. The wonders of modern technology mean that I can share them. They are keen to point out that the 'Hello Kitty' bow was cut out and coloured by his young niece!
Considering they were the first and second pumpkins that Tim has ever carved he did a pretty good job. So good, in fact, that it attracted the visit of a group of ghouls, witches and black cats!
Last night the Minos, a children’s club in Le Petit-Pressigny, came to frighten us in their quest to fill their baskets with bonbons. Luckily we had a large box of Quality Street so we opened the door and in they streamed. The adults were more reticent and insisted on staying outside. Then we realised why. They were guarding a trailer half full of bonbons!
We were very pleased that they felt they could knock on our door. We're hoping that half term is late again next year so that we can be 'chez nous'.
We’ll also buy a box of more child friendly bonbons – jelly spiders, sour snakes and chocolate cats!
Well done Tim... Pauline was so taken by them that she took a photo before we came in! I particularly like the "Pumpkin within a Pumpkin" on the right.
ReplyDeleteWe don't grow these types of pumpkin... only because they have the least flavoursome flesh of all the hundreds of varieties around... but plenty are grown for the shops.
Where were all the 'Ghoulish' sweets when we were young... I can only remember Black Jacks as the most violently coloured... all the others, Sherbet Dabs, humbugs, Barratt's Liquorice Allsorts where in quite ordinary packaging.
The pumpkins were bought from Asda in the UK and advertised as 'easy carve' pumpkins. We didn't keep the flesh.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite sweets were wine gums!
That is some pretty impressive carving!
ReplyDeleteNot a single trick or treater here, but then we did have heavy rain all evening.
Hello Gaynor:
ReplyDeleteWe are hugely impressed at the sight of these carved pumpkins. Is Tim lined up to become a future Grinling Gibbons, moving into wood?!!
Like Tim & Pauline, we were very impressed with your pumpkins! Loved Halloween as a child :-)
ReplyDeleteNo trick or treaters here but we always had loads where we lived in Suffolk, all beautifully dressed up in costumes. We used to offer sweets as well as clementines and it was interesting to see that often kids went for the fruit.
InLeeds the kids who called on me were taken aback when offered fruit and not sweets or money. And no adults to be seen, either. Civilisation... Pauline
ReplyDeleteNo tricks or treaters here either fortunately but we have been enjoying home-made pumpkin soup. :)
ReplyDeleteMost impressive pumpkins!
ReplyDeleteWe're not into Hallowe'en and neither were people in our area of rural France...parents would be mad to let their kids go off into the gloom to try to pass the dogs that guarded the farmhouses...let alone the risk that Papy would trick or treat them with eau de vie.
I
I'm quite surprised how popular Halloween is here in Andalucia - but we had masses of ghouls and ghosts and witches around. But no pumpkins to be had in the shops! I went all over to look but without success. There are some impressive ones to emulate - and Tim is obviously a natural. Excellent stuff! Axxx
ReplyDeleteI suppose the supermarkets dictate to farmers which variety to grow as well as the age of the pumpkins! They are notoriously difficult to carve. However, pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup are delicious, so never waste the flesh! I am impressed with the skills of Tim OUTOFTHEKITCHEN and those of Gaynor INSIDETHEKITCHEN and the both when hosting a very wonderful curry evening.
ReplyDeletePumpkins are for eating.... well perhaps not....
ReplyDeleteWith those wonderful pumpkins in the first picture in mind, here is a link especially for Tim and his pumpkin carving skills....there are some ideas for next year here... which I just found on the flickr blog pages.
The two pictured above will fit in perfectly with the selection in the first image.... and the third image is an absolute work of ephemeral art on an Atlantic Giant [the record breaker variety]... given that the flesh on these things is up to eight inches deep, the sculptor here has used it to great effect... and then there is the "Where the Wild Things are" pumpkin!
Perhaps pumpkins are for carving.... then eating!