Life's Simple Pleasures: Halloween Pumpkin Carving

It's been a while since I wrote about my simple pleasures, so a new post is long overdue. As I've said before, I'm a firm believer that happiness can be found in the little things in life. My personal view is that when we focus our attention on appreciating these small things, we can experience a more peaceful, contented and ultimately happy life.

Today I found myself with the biggest smile on my face as I experienced a rather creative, yet simple and fun pleasure...

Happy Halloween!

Yes it's that time of year when many people choose to have a bit of fun dressing up in ghoulish fancy dress, decking homes and streets with cobwebs, skeletons and all sorts of other spooky decorations, and getting into the spirit of all things halloween (pun intended!) 

I've always enjoyed the theatrical nature of Halloween. I love finding new suitably frightening costumes to wear as well as experimenting with spooky make-up techniques. Then of course there's decorating the house with items from my "Halloween box of goodies" such as my flickering haunted house, bubbling cauldron, and spiders web candelabra. I always find it fun when the local kids stop by trick or treating, and this year we have made sure to have some sweeties ready - it's the least we can do when they've made so much effort with their costumes.

Sticking with the theme of Halloween, while I was out investigating our new local Aldi store today, I decided to purchase a couple of reasonably large pumpkins for the bargain price of 99p each, with a view to having some fun carving them.

I don't seem to find the time these days to allow my creativity to flourish, so this promised to be an opportunity not only to share some fun time with The BF, but also to let my artistic side have a bit of an outing.

There were a lot of seeds to remove and scraping out
 to do before we started the carving!

Late this afternoon, we took some time to have a go at carving our masterpieces. TheBF had never carved a pumpkin before, and I had only carved about one or two basic attempts in years gone by.

First we began by cutting a large hole in the top of the pumpkin, then scraping out any seeds and pumpkin pulp.

There was lots to scrape out                     

Scraping complete!

Next we searched the internet for inspiration of what to carve. TheBF opted for a Pikachu style image, and I found a fairy image to carve. We printed out images to fit the size of our pumpkins and taped them onto the pumpkin so that we could use these as a guide.

Template applied and ready
to commence carving

I used a dressmakers pin to mark out the outline of the fairy (this took sometime and I now have sore fingers from putting the pin in and out so many times!) After this I was able to remove the paper image from the pumpkin and carefully use a knife to cut out the image of the fairy.

Pins for marking the outline                  

Something to keep me going...
well it was Saturday night!

After I'd fully cut-out the image of the fairy, next I wanted to create a "swoosh" of magical stardust trailing behind her. To do this I used a drill with different sizes of drill bits.

While I was doing this I switched the house lights out and popped a small torch inside the pumpkin to see how it was looking.

All in all, I think this mini project took me about 2-3 hours and I was thoroughly engrossed the whole time. In short I loved the process and better still I loved the end result.

A little bit of magical fairy dust

TheBF's pumpkin carving was fabulous too...

Pikachu!

So now we're all set for the next couple of evenings, these babies will be taking pride of place outside our front door, facing onto the square where we live.

A pumpkin welcome!

After the pumpkin carving was complete, it was time to decide what to do with all the contents which had been scraped from the insides! A quick internet search suggested that we could turn the many (many!) seeds into a tasty snack. So we decided to give it a go.

It was really easy to do, and I have to say the results are delicious. We put the pumpkin seeds in a colander and rinsed them, then placed them on a baking sheet where we drizzled them with Olive Oil and sprinkled with sea salt.

These went into the oven (at 180 degrees fan assisted) for 16 minutes (anywhere between 10-20 mins is good depending on your oven), after 10 minutes I checked them every 2 minutes to see whether they had browned.

Our roasted pumpkin seeds hot out of the oven

Once out of the oven, I put the seeds onto kitchen towel to pat off any excess oil, then popped them into a serving dish and they were ready to sample. They're a lovely savoury snack, reminding me of a type of bar snack one might be offered!

Removing the excess oil                        

Tasty pumpkin seed snack

                                         

So that's my simple pleasure for today - the enjoyment of taking some time to be creative both in carving, and in coming up with a new tasty snack for us to try.


Have you tried carving a pumpkin this year? How did it go? If you have any pictures, let me know using the comments or my contact form and if you're happy for me to do so, I'll be in touch to see if I can list them in a follow up post!

Introducing my new feature: Life's Simple Pleasures

I'm a firm believer that happiness can be found in the little things in life. From time to time I'm going to be featuring reflections on life's simple pleasures as part of my blog. My personal view is that when we focus our attention on appreciating these small things, we can experience a more peaceful, contented and ultimately happy life.

I do hope that you agree and perhaps can find happiness or inspiration from the little things I showcase here.

Oh and I'd absolutely love to include your simple pleasures as part of this feature! Please let me know if you have an idea that I can share and I will happily include your guest post, or even write about your idea if you'd prefer not to do a post yourself.

The key here is that no thing is too small! Anything goes!

So without further ado, here is my simple pleasure I'm delighted to share with you today...

Have you ever pondered the great delight that a hot drink can bestow?

Call me British, but for me my simplest and happiest of pleasures is in drinking a wonderful cup of tea. The most uplifting hot drink of the day for me is that very first cup of tea in the morning. I pop the kettle on, make my brew, feel the steam rising onto my face, and take my first, long sip - it's almost impossible for me to do this without saying "aaaahhhhhh" afterward, and I always experience a feeling of utter bliss as I relish that moment of complete contentment.

For some, the drink may be a steaming hot coffee, be it latte, cappuccino, flat white, or espresso to name a few. For others still, a hot water adorned with lemon, lime or orange. Then of course there's the delights of hot chocolate or malted drinks such as Horlicks and Ovaltine (other brands are available!). Seasonal drinks such as mulled wine, mulled cider or gluvine are yet more examples of the wonders of heated beverages which can light up (and heat up) our lives.

If you think about it, hot drinks are there for us through the many ups and downs in our lives. During the darkest and saddest of times, when people come together to support each other, one of the common denominators that people can bond over is the desire to pop the kettle on and share thoughts over a cup of tea or mug of coffee. A good strong coffee has brought many a student through a late night vigil endeavouring to meet an assignment deadline. A very British "High Tea" has become a social phenomenon that people use to celebrate any number of special events - I've attended these for baby showers, hen do's and indeed my very own 40th birthday celebration last year. Then of course there's the after dinner coffee, a perfect close to many a social occasion such as weddings, anniversaries or just dinner out of an evening.

A few years back (2011 to be precise) I watched a highly entertaining television series: "The drink that speaks for modern Britain". I loved watching as James May and Ozzie Clarke travelled all over the British Isles visiting vineyards, distilleries and breweries sampling the drinks on offer with lots of laughs along the way. As their adventure drew to a close they sat outside their caravan discussing all the drinks they'd sampled, trying to decide what the winner should be. It feels quite apt to finish this article using the words of James May as the program drew to a close...

James May:
“Do you know what I think? I think there is one drink that genuinely invigorates this nation. It allows no hindrance to its enjoyment on the basis of class, or race, or education, or income, or geographical location. It gets things done, it’s something that unites the people of this nation, and it’s something that other nations in the world simply don’t get. There is one drink. Do you know what it is?

Oz Clarke:
“Tea”

James May:
“It’s a cup of tea isn’t it? A cup of tea is the drink that speaks for modern Britain."


Can a mug of hot coffee, or a nice cup of tea bring you the same pleasure as it does me? Do you have a simple pleasure you'd like to be featured? Please let me know in the comments or using the Contact form in the right hand sidebar...