Take part in study on PFAS 'forever chemicals' in eggs

[patsylabrador]

DD carved a sad face on a pumpkin, soaked a toilet roll in petrol, popped it in pumpkin and lit it. Outdoors!

Very dramatic, quite dangerous and it was quite spectacular with flames licking out of the mouth and eyes. It burnt for so long we started to get bored. Now the pumpkin is looking very woebegone in the rain.

My favourite b'day cake M&S Colin the caterpiller has a Halloween version and very yummy it is too. Putting up graveyard signs and spooky pictures around the house. Need to get hold of some of that cobweb stuff and make the witch. We're going to make lots of fudge and rocky road at the weekend.

[patsylabrador]

Sorry, me again. I went out for the day today and when I got home my twins had decorated the house. My home now resembles a haunted house, it's brilliant. I have taught them well, my work is done!

[Ziggy]

I LOVE Halloween... I didn't grow up with it, I have no particular issues about whether it's american, over-hyped or whatever, I just love it, and together with Xmas it's my favourite time of year, except that at Xmas I have to cook and spend weeks getting presents for everyone, whereas Halloween I can just enjoy!

 

Every year since we've bought the house, ten years ago, we've had a big party, and our friends love coming. It's a big family thing, with grown up and kids all involved. We always dress up, our guests dress up or not as they wish, and we carve pumkins and have fireworks... We just had it on Saturday, and I had a great time. Some of our friends dressed up in amazing ways this year and looked fantastic... OH and I were dressed as knight and witch (think Arthur/Morgana).

 

Many people hate Halloween, but in my view it's like all things, it can be done in nice friendly ways, or it can be distorted into reasons to behave badly... people who behave badly on halloween probably behave badly at any other opportunity too. I don't go trick or treating cause it makes me feel uncomfortable, but we happily welcome kids, and the ones we get tend to be from toddlers to early teens, and always quite polite. We put pumkins at the door so they know they're welcome, but past a certain time if my girls are in bed I put a sign saying 'we've run out of sweets and kids are in bed, have a good halloween' or something like that.

 

Tonight one of my girls is away at a party, and she's actually disappointed she won't be here to enjoy the visits from trick or treaters... it's always a big deal, especially for my younger girls, who rush to the door each time in high excitement to offer sweets to visitors... with me running to the door too shouting 'wait for me to be there before you open the door' (safety first after all).

 

It's one celebration we all seem to like, there aren't many events when I see my OH happy to squeeze in a knight suit, my 5 year old over-excited to be dressed as a pumkin, and my teenage girls enjoying dressing up in all kind of dark-looking stuff while playing with tons of make up...

 

So to all of you who like it, happy halloween from Ziggy and her gang,

And to anyone who doesn't like it and has had bad experiences before, I hope anyone who wants to enjoy Halloween near you does it with respect for those who don't like to be involved, it's sad when some people behave in ways that give any celebration a bad reputation,

 

Here is a shot of some of our pumkins (mine is the middle one with the wolf howling to the moon, I loved carving it):

 

Have a spooky time,

[patsylabrador]

Happy Halloween Ziggy. My neighbours came round to tour the haunted house which was fun and I was persuaded to watch Insidious which I found utterly terrifying. It felt very Hitchcock and I felt very tense. Next year I'm going to watch Carry on Screaming!