Jack-o-lanterns

Yesterday I scooped out the huge pumpkin I bought on Tuesday and carved a face in it, the whole operation took less than an hour.  Thank who ever's up there that it wasn't the same sized turnip, it would be like being in purgatory and I'd still be working at it this time next year.

For any Canadian readers who don't know this, pumpkins were a little hard to come by in the UK when I was growing up so we made our jack-o-lanterns out of turnips (rutabagas or what I would call swedes). If you have ever chopped one up to cook it you will appreciate that they have roughly the same texture and hardness as cannon balls.

Its always seemed normal to me but Tom thinks its hilarious.  With the benefit of hindsight the vision of small children spending hours/several days hollowing the centre out of turnips with blunt (and often bent when the job was finished) tea spoons to make misshapen, weird looking lanterns for Halloween really puts you in mind of the industrial North of England during its Victorian heyday.  Factory chimneys belching out clouds of black smoke and haggard looking people (possibly called Baldrick) wearing flat caps and rags and eating nothing but potato peelings for dinner.  But no, that's what we did in the 1970s wearing flared trousers and listening to Abba.

I am tempted to buy a turnip and spend a month hollowing it out to show my new Canadian friends just how tough we Brits really are.  You don't build an empire taking the easy way out with ready hollowed out, beautifully shaped, grew that way for your convenience pumpkins.

Anyway, here is the display that Rose and I made this afternoon.  Jacob missed the photo opportunity because he would rather go and play with his friends.  Socialite.

All I said was 'Say pumpkin'