The New Normal: Happy Halloween

Getting ready for Halloween, which is full of superstition and black cats often feature - our little cat is not at all spooky.  She doesnt know yet that those mice under my bedspread are my toes!

Here are this years pumpkins, hubby carved the scary one, mine is the cat.

The best place in our area for seeing pumpkins is usually Slindon.  The village is famous for the displays done for charity at Halloween.  Sadly this year there is no display.  But *here's* a link to their site .  The little mouse house light was in their pottery shop years ago and is something I always wish I had purchased - one day I will go back and see if theres another one waiting for me.  

The shops in Brighton have always put on fabulous displays in The Lanes,  these are pictures from previous years.

and a lot of the houses pre CV19 held parties so we would get the train down and stay late, walking round the streets to see the decorations.

This is my magic wand, it was  hand crafted by the father of a friend specially for me and is very precious.  A wand like this is a one off, the handle hand turned, the wand soldered with glitter, it does good spells, i always hold it before making important decisions.

My magic pumpkin - one day it will turn into a coach and take me to the ball.

Heres somewhere interesting to visit when visits are allowed again...  This is the entrance to Cuckfield Museum which has a display of items related to superstition and witchcraft called 'the cache'  *here* beautifully displayed  to show the items as they would have been found - under floorboards.  All the items are from the houses in Cuckfield village dating back to the 18th century, placed under floorboards to trick evil spirits away from the children living there. There are bottles to contain the evil jinn, shoes and a three corner hat to distract him.  I visit sometimes as it draws me.  You can't take pictures in there but the above link takes you to their website which has a little video of the contents.  Sadly it's closed until next year when I hope to visit again.

Over the years I have posted some of the things we did at Halloween for our children ...

These plates have been with us for over fifteen years and come out every Halloween eve. I just love their funny faces, they are from Crackerbarrel, Florida, where we had a very happy halloween family holiday when the boys were boys.

Hubby mostly is the chief pumpkin carver, i did the little cat. These are from a previous year.

My favourie plate, the black cat one.

As a child my parents gave us toffee apples on sticks which my mother made, if you were unlucky you got a rotten apple (trick) or a nice crisp, one (treat).

My mother was big on Halloween/Samhain being a pagan, she called it punky night and our dad always started us off with a bowl of apples in water for apple dunking.  For those who havent heard of it, you get the apples out of the bowl by kneeling with hands behind back using only your teeth to pull an apple out.

Hope you enjoy Halloween night, I will be visiting the lightening struck oak tree in the woods and listening for the owl.