The Annual Neep Picture

Neepie lanterns

It was a bit of a weird Hallowe'en here because Miss M is away for the week on a school trip, doing outdoorsy sort of things in the pouring rain. The house is very quiet. Not that she's noisy but she's the chattiest of all of us, so without her peace reigns in the little village house we know so well (sorry, Astérix..).

I still did the neepie lanterns and made up bags of goodies for the guisers so it wasn't very different from other years, just a bit odd without Miss M. The Boy went out guising (as the Grim Reaper with home-made mask and scythe) with his friend from over the road and a few other local kids but as the boys both have deep voices now I suspect this may be their last year. Or maybe not! There were other teenagers roaming the streets, with varying amounts of effort being put into their costumes.

So hello November. I haven't changed the calendars (for I have several) over yet, must do that!

Scythe

Of pumpkins and turnips

Hallowe'en has been and gone, and this year I carved two neepie lanterns, although I don't seem to have a photo of them together, and knitted a pumpkin. The pumpkin pattern was one I saw in a magazine, just when I fancied a quick, easy knit. The wool is Wendy Ramsdale, which I'd never used before, and is absolutely gorgeous.

Neepie lantern dribbling wax

I hung one lantern up outside the house and the kids took the other with them when they went guising:

Neepie lantern in action

When I took the lantern down from outside the house I managed to spill candle wax all over my hoodie so I've learned how to remove candle wax from clothes now! Actually I knew in theory how to do it but had never had cause to try, and now I know that ironing the item between layers of brown paper does actually work! Well, up to a point anyway - it got most of it out and I've just put the hoodie through a wash to see if the rest comes out.  See, you're never too old to learn something! Talking of which...

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

I graduated on Saturday! BA(Hons) in Humanities with Literature, and a very lovely graduation ceremony it was too.

Open University graduates are of all ages and, as was pointed out in one of the speeches, have almost all been studying under awkward circumstances - while working, while bringing up children, while caring for someone - so there was a real sense of achievement. I graduated from a traditional university 22 years ago having had a traditional student experience  - study, party, study, kid myself that sitting on the beach with my notes meant I was studying, beach party, study, repeat... As a young student I had a great time, learned a lot (not all from the studying part of it), and wouldn't have missed it for the world, and I did have a sense of achievement then. But really my only responsibility then was to remember to feed myself - and I wasn't even very good at that! Studying when you have actual responsibilities is a different kettle of fish entirely and I was taken by surprise at how amazing it felt to graduate with all these other people who had squeezed studying in here and there, fitting it in around families and commitments and responsibilities. So, it was a really nice, happy day!

there's a light (over at Peeriemoot's place)

Particularly tough neeps this year!

Worth the effort though. I hung the jagged eyed neepie lantern outside the house while I took the kids out guising, carrying the other one with me and pausing to relight it every few minutes of course - there was hardly a breath of wind, but just enough combined with moving around I suppose! Every year I tell myself I'll get some of those little electric tealights, and every year I forget. However when we got back to the house the outside lantern was still burning, so that was pretty good going. Astonishing actually!

may contain traces of sugar

There has been a certain amount of Hallowe'en-inspired culinary creativity going on in the last couple of days.

 Miss M came home from school today with 'Dracula's dentures' today - two digestive biscuits, mini-marshmallows, icing sugar and food colouring. Pretty effective, don't you think?

And the Boy came had Home Ec. today so he came home with a chocolate apple - I'm quite relieved they didn't try toffee apples!

So they were happy eating their creation.

Miss M's school had their Hallowe'en disco last night so I was providing a bit of home baking. I made two batches of chocolate chip cookies because they're quick and easy, but they looked a bit boring so I did a quick batch of fairy cakes as well, and then looked on Pinterest for decorating inspiration, and rather regretted it. It turns out that some people really throw themselves into producing incredibly disgusting-looking Hallowe'en party food. I stuck with spiders' webs and eyeballs as being just gross enough to satisfy children, but not actually stomach churning to look at.

I'm not really cut out for fiddly cake decorating but these were reasonably easy using squeezy tubes of icing. Reasonably. That's me all baked out for a while though!

Neeps and apples

It's ten to seven on Hallowe'en, we've just run out of sweets and have taken the neepie lanterns back in off the doorstep. And switched all the lights off. Sorry, kids, it's all over for another year. I got a bit creative with the first neep this year. It turns out that cats' eyes are bit fiddly to carve though - for those who've never carved a neep they're much harder than pumpkins and it's tricky to get details, partly of course because they're that much smaller. Very satisfying though!

I went into Glasgow today and met up with a friend who I don't see nearly often enough.  We met up the Yarn Cake which is a very lovely yarn shop/cafe in the West End of Glasgow. Coffee was consumed as was apple crumble cake (my favourite) and we chatted and knitted*, and also caught up with Antje who runs the Yarn Cake and who I also hadn't seen for ages.  The West End was looking very autumnal. Very much a lovely day.

River Kelvin

* I finished that garter stitch square - wooh, achievement!

Ooooooowoooooooooo

Yay, go me - cramming another blogpost into October! It's not an exciting one, just a bit of Hallowe'en fun (I think I may be the last person left using that apostrophe) and some autumn colour. I made neepie lanterns again this year. No injuries at all, not even bruised knuckles. No injuries to me that is. I did get a bit enthusiastic with the bigger neep's eyes though and sliced right through to the top. I left the smaller lantern on our doorstep and took the larger lantern out with me when I took the kids out guising.

 In progress 

The weather was a bit wild today - at ten to four there was heavy rain followed by thunder, lightning and hail (briefly). I can't say I was actually looking forward to taking the kids out, but fortunately by the time we went out the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared - we even saw some stars. It was chilly and quite breezy so my lantern's candle kept blowing out, but at least we weren't wet.  We met up with my friend from over the road and her kids. The kids had some terrible jokes to tell, as tradition dictates of course. For example:
-Knock Knock
-Who's there?
-Europe.
-Europe who?
-No, you're a poo!

and

-What does a witch want in a hotel?
-I don't know, what does a witch want in a hotel?
-Broom service!

The first one had my friend doubled up laughing every time (it was her son telling it - with great relish!).


But enough of Hallowe'en and silly jokes.  I went out for a walk the other day  - on an intermittently wet day.

It was sunny for these pictures but chucked it down again five minutes later. Refreshing though.

I like this footpath:

It looks leafy and mysterious though it actually just leads to a children's play area and more houses. The white dot in the middle is a cat who was trotting purposefully away, on some cattish mission no doubt. Secret one. Ssh. Don't tell a soul.

NaBloNeeneeNoonoo

Apparently it's Blog Writing Month - NaBloNeeneeNoonoo or some such thing. I don't like Newspeak-style agglomerations, especially ones start with Na standing for National because there's never any mention of which nation exactly. So in support of the nation of Tuvalu who are fairly unlikely to be the nation in question, I'm avoiding the nasty word and I'm just saying that the plan is to blog every day this month. Last year I tried Advent Blogging in December - every day up until Christmas Day - and managed that so how hard can thirty days be? Well, the honest answer is that the some days it'll be quite difficult indeed but I'm allowing myself a few posts that are just a picture and a caption.

So we start with Last Night. That's a pile of bags of sweeties (also satsumas as a nod towards vitamins and stuff) I put together yesterday in preparation for hordes of kids at the door. In fact there weren't huge numbers of kids out and about, we always have too much (everyone does) and there are always leftovers.

And that's the Horrors dressed up for going out guising - the Boy is the classic sheeted spectre and Miss Mouse is 'Violet Vocabulary', a superhero known only to primary school-children so other kids her age thought it was cool and nobody else knew who she was.  The Boy, who is rather shy, had a completely fantastic time this year. As his face was covered he didn't feel nearly as shy as usual about telling his joke to people on their doorsteps ('How does the ghost like his eggs cooked? Terror-fried').  The rain had stopped by the time we went out and we met up with some other kids and parents to go round together - my friend's husband made a very impressive Darth Vader but nobody gave him sweeties, awwww....

And keeping up with tradition I made two small neepie lanterns. The neeps (swedes) I got this year were teeny which makes it a bit awkward but no skinned knuckles! One of my friends told me on Facebook this morning that she once ended up getting six stitches on her hand after a neep-carving accident, so I'm counting myself very lucky! We left one on our doorstep while we were out guising and I carried the other with me.

The aftermath - singed neep. Aren't tealights a brilliant invention?

My Powerhoop class has been cancelled this morning so I'm off to wind wool for my orange project - not really comparable exercise but it needs to be done!

Neepie lantern

Traditionally in Scotland neeps (Swede/rutabaga) are used instead of pumpkins though nowadays most people use pumpkins because they are so so sooooo much easier to carve and are easily available. I tried a pumpkin one year but stick to neeps usually because to me the smell of slightly singed neep is a big part of Hallowe'en, and I want my kids to have that kind of sensory memory. So I don't care about the bruised knuckles - or not much. At least I didn't skin my knuckles this year!

I'm particularly pleased with the wire handle - it was just a bit of wire left over from a piece of fencing we took down in the summer (and I'd saved because, you never know, it might come in handy..). Miss Mouse and I went out guising with some of the other kids (and mums) in the area and I carried my lantern the whole way round with no bother at all. When we came home Miss Mouse had so many sweeties that she looked as if she'd been visited by St.Haribo of the Rotten Teeth :-D.