When they were young the children wanted to carve pumpkins.
As a Brit I had not been brought up in the halloween culture so gracing the front step with a carved pumpkin or two was not high on my priority list in fact it wasn’t on my priority list at all.
Then we went to England during that ghoulie season and my brother and his wife, the fun Aunt and Uncle, had carved a pretty impressive pumpkin that welcomed us on their front porch.
The following year the boys insisted they were old enough to carve pumpkins so we went, as a family, to a pumpkin patch and enjoyed an afternoon selecting the perfect orange orbs.
At home hubs cut the tops off and it fell to me to scoop the slimy insides out so that a face could be drawn on and then carefully carved out using a special tool or a common o’ garden fruit knife.
Hubs helped the girls by cutting out ghastly smiles and vacant eyes.
The boys tackled their own designs and I supervised their use of sharp knives, closely.
When they had finished we popped tea lights inside and turned off the fluorescents.
An ethereal glow resulted which entranced us all for the length of time it takes to drink a cup of tea.
The Jack o’ Lanterns lasted a few weeks and stayed in the kitchen for us to enjoy on occasion, until they began to shrink and shrivel.
The craft never reached the status of tradition.
This year daughts decided she wanted to carve a large pumpkin. She undertook the whole project herself even seasoning and roasting the seeds. She did a good job and puffed and panted with the exertion of shaping the hard rind.
On completion she triumphantly placed a candle inside, lit it, popped on the lid and carried it carefully to the hearth in our sitting room and placed it on a little table.
There it languished, candle extinguished, until it collapsed in a heap
and was quickly photographed before being rushed out to the dustbin.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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