Pumpkins

An obvious choice for today’s title! There is at present a large chair with a laundry basket on top, stood outside the front door. Why you might just ask? Well, they are draped with a white sheet and a scary pumpkin head adorns the top. In fact it is the largest pumpkin head I have ever seen! It arrived a few days ago, a gift from Sindy in fact. She in turn was given it by a family she is friendly with. It seems that the family grow super sized pumpkins and give them quite freely to friends and fellow villagers, where they live. How very kind of them. There were two other, slightly smaller pumpkins sent off to preschool this morning accompanied by a little bat named Caleb. We actually have a family of bats that live very close to the house. Every dusk they are to be seen flapping ferociously around the house for maybe thirty minutes before heading out for their nightly feed. I very much hope Caleb does not join them this evening. The smell of pumpkin pie is wafting through the kitchen and into the rather cold living room. A fire is made up in the grate for later this evening. It won’t be the first fire we have lit this season. That was on Sunday evening when we first felt the chill of the weather changing. It was a great excuse for toasting large wedges of chunky bread over the open fire, lavished with melted butter and Dadda’s home made black cherry jam. A real treat. There is a little heat coming from an electric radiator one of our neighbours, James has leant us. He and his family were without heating these last five days. Though their predicament was due to a boiler malfunction and not like us, simply running out of heating oil. One thousand litres has just been ordered, arriving on Friday. They put us down as a priority as I did mention the five children were already feeling the cold. The few Halloween decorations are up, thank you Auntie Sara for those. A few years ago she visited and said ‘my kids are a bit old for Halloween now’ and ‘you’ve got it all to look forward to’! I now know what she meant. Pumpkin pie and trick or treat. That’s family life for you. We’re not doing anything tonight, rather saving it for Saturday evening with some of the neighbours and their children. Better order large volumes of sweets in, though I’m inclined to say bah humbug, but humbugs are sweets as well I guess. At least we’ll have a heated house Friday onwards.