31 Days of Halloween: Day 1

After a thoroughly horrible, brutal and bruising September, I've emerged with one plan and one plan only... Halloween. We're celebrating all month again, as is tradition. We've got quite a few things planned this year, as well as hoping for a few surprises. And our first day of festivities was a pretty good one. Here's to more fun in October!

Crumpsall Park Litter-Pick

This morning started off with the monthly Friends of Crumpsall Park litter-pick. Not very Halloween-y, but certainly autumnal as we were rained off. I did spot my first mushroom in the park though, so that's certainly seasonal!

Ghost Earrings

New Halloween earrings! Got these little ghosts from Pure and Simple (aka Gillian).

31 Halloween Films: Trick ’r Treat

We made a list of our top 31 Halloween films to watch this October, and we're going to choose the order of them at random. The random number generator didn't steer us wrong though, as we started off with Trick 'r Treat, which is a pretty perfect place to begin.

Halloween Gingerbread

Halloween gingerbread movie snack! (From Morrisons, not homemade!)

31 Halloween Films: Scream

Next on our Halloween list was Scream. What's your favourite scary movie?

31 Halloween Films: Hostel

Bit of a change of pace with our next Halloween film... Hostel!

Spite Crumble

We've got a bramble in our back garden that is utterly impossible to control. It's taller than most of the trees, and as sinister as a triffid. It seems determined to grow in a way that blocks the back door and we've both nearly lost eyes to it on more than one occasion. Well, enough's enough. If the evil bramble is here to stay, it can work for its living. This year, I harvested every last berry from the evil bugger out of spite, and Rob cooked it with flour we got from Walk Mill at Lammas. The bramble grew a weird tentacle last night as some sort of retaliation (probably nothing to worry about), but tonight we dined on Spite Crumble!

Ghostwritten

I started off my Halloween reading this year with Ghostwritten by Ronald Malfi. Books, apparently, can be deadly.

31 Days of Halloween: Day 16

My Halloween month continued today, though I'm a bit tired after the week so far! We had something cool planned for the day that I've been looking forward to for a while.

Chilling Cocktails

Rob and I had a day off which we decided to fill with cocktails and horror films. We tried out some of the recipes in Chilling Cocktails: Classic Cocktails with a Horrifying Twist by Jason Ward, and teamed them up with the films that inspired them.

Reckless 80s Teenager

We're starting our film and cocktail night with Friday the 13th, and a cocktail Jason Ward calls the Reckless 80s Teenager!

Scrèam de Menthe

Our next film and cocktail combo was Scream and a cocktail called Scrèam de Menthe! Welcome to the 90s!

Redrum

Our final film this evening was The Shining, and we had the cocktail Jason Ward calls Redrum. Now, you notice that I wrote our cocktail as 'Red Rum', not 'Redrum', on my board. That's because, ever since we went to Southport, Red Rum has been my favourite celebrity horse. My favourite Red Rum story is that, after he retired, he lived in a field with his best friend, Andy the donkey. Red Rum loved Andy, so I feel like he would've wanted Andy to have a cocktail named for him as well. And so our final cocktail of the night was an Andy. Because you can't have Red Rum without his best friend Andy, can you? (This one wasn't from Jason Ward's book. It's all my own invention.)

Today's Story

Today's story was 'Taboo' by Geoffrey Household, a werewolf story! Or is it?

Today's Tea

Today's tea was All of Them Witches from Tenacious Tea, another spiced apple brew. The spice in this one is distinctly clove-y, which feels very seasonal. (This one also has an awesome name, but it's actually only my second favourite name from Tenacious Tea... we'll get to my favourite later this month.)