The Pumpkin Party

Note the cunning use of random planks and bits of tree trunk! Hope the rain (and the wind) holds off...this is where I'll be for the next six hours, with a Halloween soundtrack (Monster Mash, anyone?) and the smell of burgers in the air. How long can I resist?

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Boo!

It's Hallowe'en on Monday so I have a pumpkin-filled weekend ahead of me - this evening we're all off to a local conservation area - Swaines Green - to the annual Scream on the Green event, which promises a fortune teller, a House of Horrors, haunted portraits, and (my favourite) barbecue and tea and coffee. Thing 1 is very excited as we have a devil horn headband for her and glow-in-the-dark nail polish as a very special treat for not driving me mad during half term, and Thing 2 is very excited at her spider hairband. Thing 3 is terrified by a small inflatable skeleton so I'm hoping he sleeps through the whole thing.

Tomorrow is The Pumpkin Party at Parndon Wood Nature Reserve near Harlow, which you can find out more about here - I'll be behind my stall and hopefully sheltered by a gazebo! You can find me, my fabulous new pumpkin earrings and spooky charm bracelets, and a flask of hot Ribena in there somewhere.

The pumpkins at the top of this post will be decorating the stall before coming back home again...my first attempt at carving pumpkins and I'm quite pleased with myself as the ghostie was freehand (although the bat was a stencil). My sister is the Pumpkin Queen and carves the most fabulous designs - this year's pumpkin for the kids was a skeleton head - so I don't think I'll be stealing her crown, but what do you think?

A walk in the woods

Early autumn, near Theydon Bois! Yesterday was gorgeous so we gathered up the hordes of children, grabbed a picnic in Tesco and headed off to Epping Forest for an autumn walk up to Ambresbury Banks, which was allegedly Boudicca's stronghold. Epping - like all good forests - has excellent legends, like the ghost of Dick Turpin, Dick Turpin's cave, Sixteen String Jack and of course Boudicca, the original wild redheaded queen (the other one has a Hunting Lodge named after her not far away in Chingford).

Tove collected a pocket full of acorns, spotted a squirrel (or a 'weee-ul' as she says) and slid down the banks on her bottom, they all climbed on fallen trees and we admired the autumn carpet as you can see in the picture. We really don't take enough advantage of the Forest, it's so lovely and mostly accessible even with the buggy, so we have no excuse! I might make an autumn bracelet now, am feeling a bit inspired...when I have the Jelly Cube bracelets out of the way for Christmas!

I also managed to fit in a 4-mile walk with a friend yesterday, again through part of the Forest though this time sticking to the road towards North Weald - we were lucky enough to see a beautiful stag and his hinds across the road. I know the Forest is full of deer but they are so shy that it's a real privilege to see them, almost as if they are the wood's secrets.

What did you do on the weekend? I hope it wasn't the last gasps of summer - today was warm down by the Thames but allegedly it's Arctic winds and snow for the rest of the week/

A new challenge!

Regular readers will know that this year I challenged myself to do the Race for Life 5K back in July, and after that went well I decided to try the 10K next year. I'm still running (although a cold set me back last month so I had to take a week off and it RUINED my run times) but last week I signed up at Walk the Walk to do the Moonwalk London 2012, which is a full marathon of 26.2 miles through the streets of London at night...wish me luck!

If anyone would like to sponsor me, my online fundraising page is here and if everyone who clicks it just gives £1 it will soon build up. My aim is to raise over £200 for breast cancer research. I started my training today with a 6.29 mile walk in just over 1 hour 30 minutes, so I'm on my way.

K x