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.

Lammas: Day 7

It's the big day! The finale of our Lammas celebrations for this year, and one last chance to do the season proud...

Breadmas Calendar Day 7

And behind Bread Wrapper No. 7 today... it's a Sourdough Roll (from Asda)!

Courgette Bread

I used the courgettes from our Groobarbs box and some stone-milled white flour from Walk Mill in a Courgette and Cheese Bread (one loaf green, one loaf yellow). The bake was rubbish because I used way too many courgettes, but the taste was really moreish.

Lammas Dinner

Rob made us the traditional Lammas Dinner of Lammas Surprise, followed by Cherry Crumble (made with stone-milled malted flour from Walk Mill).

Lammas Gifts

We ended our Lammas festivities tonight by exchanging the traditional cards and gifts. Once again, we're saving these whiskies for our seasonal tasting set at Christmas.

Children of the Corn

And finally, we celebrated tonight with the traditional seasonal film... Children of the Corn.

And so the wheel of the year turns. We'll be celebrating again at the Autumn Equinox.

Lammas: Day 5

Another day of celebrating Lammas for us, and we had a nice little afternoon out planned.

Breadmas Calendar Day 5

Behind Bread Wrapper No. 5 today... it's a Kaiser (from Morrisons)!

Walk Mill

We had a very special Lammas treat today... we actually saw some wheat! We went to Walk Mill in Cheshire today to see a waterwheel and traditionally stone-milled flour.