Halloween

I can't remember ever doing Halloween, I have never been over keen on eating my own body weight in sweets and generally fancy dress is not my thing. That and my parents saw no point in it, not that they discouraged me from celebrating it but more that they just never encouraged it.

Any way carving pumpkins is a pretty novel thing for me as I had never done it before now (at least I don't recall ever doing it) and to be honest seems pretty pointless when you consider the time and money put into it (really not a lot) and the amount of time it serves it's purpose (maybe 4-5 days?)

So you may be asking "Why did you do it then Ben, why!?" well let me tell you ...

Pumpkins - strange as it may sound - are actually edible and it happened to come up in conversation that my new flat mate Helen had always wanted to make pumpkin scones. So, not being one to hinder an entrepreneurial baker I seized the opportunity to produce a flat bonding session that combined perfectly with me being able to eat and purchased 3 pumpkins at 80p a piece.

(which makes me wander how much they are when it's not Halloween because those prices have to be inflated or the person running the veg shop has no business sense.)


So if you're thinking "Wielding a knife with no particular skill in an attempt to carve a scary looking face out of a fairly tough vegetable with 2 other people doing the same thing in close proximity is a recipe for disaster endless entertainment." Then you are on about the same lines as me.

This one was Daves' first attempt (he is my other flat mate in case you hadn't picked that up) and I think it's rather wonderful. Interestingly, upon completion of this creation Dave notified me that the good thing about carving pumpkins is that you can pop a face on the other side if your first one wasn't so great. which he promptly began to do ...

This was my first attempt and yes that huge slice down its face which I have tried to carry off as a scar was actually my first cut which was meant to be the length of the right eye ... yea, moving on.

No points for guessing who designed this. This was actually Helens second attempt - I didn't even take a picture of the first, in fairness she was using a blunt knife. For this one she drew the face on at which point I offered to do the cutting in the interest of everybody involved.

So in both of the above from left to right it goes Ben - Helen - Dave.

The pumpkin scones have not yet been made but an update will follow on that one, hopefully soon.
So far Plan Pumpkin - Success!
Happy Halloween everybody.

Title font used 'October crow'

Birthday Celebrations

Last week I got freshers flu - hence the lack of activity in this spot but I am now (only just!) pulling out the other side though I still have to blow my nose pretty regularly. Moving smoothly onward, last weekend saw two birthdays and a leaving party all rolled into a very short space of time.

For the first birthday a wild river swim was organised at this point you might be thinking - 'seriously? swimming in a river isn't that just unpleasantly cold' and you would be absolutely correct, being ill didn't help so I only ventured to waist height and even that was painful the rest of the day consisted of an elongated picnic, Irish snap and ninjas. there weren't loads of pictures taken - I was too busy enjoying myself but it was quite the scenic location.

This birthday also happened to be the leaving party, as for the second birthday my illness hit a peak so I wasn't even going to bother bringing the camera but if you're that interested she blogged about it herself over here.  

Random Ramble

You may be able to remember a couple of weeks ago we had a spot of particularly unseasonal weather which now seems like an age ago- anyway a group of us decided to hit Saltford and go for a walk followed by drinks. Unfortunately so did the world and his wife. I didn't really take many pictures and the walk was a bit of a non-event but you can't really go wrong with drinks.