Yes, it's Halloween! And thank goodness Onion News has managed to bring out their special "Pumpkin News Supplement" on time this year, after last year's debacle, when it came out a week late, due, they said, to "leaves on the line", or some-such madness! What madness!!!
And here's Colin's pick of the "doozies" this year !!!!
my wife Lois and me taking our annual Halloween walk through the trees
and across the streams in nearby Radford Park
Pumpkins are very much on our minds today, of course, but nobody could accuse our Ocado pumpkin of being morbidly obese" - that's for sure!!! But it was the biggest the online supermarket had to offer us, so fair enough!
Lois carves our 2026 pumpkin sticking a cheeky tongue out (the pumpkin, not Lois!!!!),
while somehow also managing to prepare our lunch (see picture 2!) which is mad!!!!
And having positioned our pumpkin outside our front door, we "do the tour" of neighbours' displays, and award our coveted "Colin Award" to this house, with its "creepy gardener" theme - Kudos, those guys on the corner!!!!
I must say that skeleton looks strangely familiar, however - maybe it wasn't a display after all, just a morbidly-un-obese guy, trying to earn an honest quid or two perhaps? Whatever - but he's certainly done a good job - that lawn looks immaculate!!!
I wonder...!
And while Lois was busy in the kitchen carving this year's pumpkin, I had the onerous job of collecting all our fun-size chocolate bars together for tonight's expected "rampage" of trick-or-treaters!!!
Lois said I was mad to buy so many bags, but we actually get well over a hundred kids ringing our doorbell after darkness falls, between 5:30pm and 7:30pm, so "Kudos, Yours Truly!". At one stage, we even think we're going to run out of them, but luckily we've still got a couple of bags to shamelessly gorge ourselves on later, so that's all good!!!
And, needless to say, today is another frantically busy day for Lois and me, quite apart from the Halloween shenanigans! After a much-reduced hour or two in bed for afternoon "nap-time" - it has to be just a quickie today, unfortunately - because at 3pm we're due at the local Liphook U3A Open Day at the town's iconic "Millennium Hall", where we find ourselves signing up to even more groups, which is mad: the History Group and the Strollers Group, with Lois also signing up to the Card-Making group, would you believe!
(left) Lois and me [inset] at a typical U3A Open meeting today, with (right)
me showcasing our latest group memberships: card-making, history and "strollers"
The "strollers group" outings always include a pub lunch, however, and it's considered 'okay' if you just turn up for the lunch bit, the group's leader tells us, so that's a relief!
But what utter utter utter madness!!!
16:00 We get home from the U3A Open Meeting to find pictures of Halloween Australia from our daughter Sarah, who lives in Perth, Australia with husband Francis and their 13-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.
Due to the 8 hour time-difference, Halloween is already "done and dusted" by now, but Sarah says the twins "had a fabulous time", dressed as jellyfish, would you believe, using see-through umbrellas decorated with little lights - the young scamps!!!
our daughter Sarah in Perth, Australia, with her twin daughters
Lily and Jessica, dressed as jellyfish for the evening's shenanigans - the young scamps!!!
Also, when Lois and I get home this afternoon, there are pictures from one of our other grandchildren, our daughter Alison's youngest: Isaac (16). He's just started A-Level Mandarin Chinese at the local high school in Liphook, and Isaac and his classmates returned yesterday from a 10-day study visit to a city in South China, where they spent time getting to know students at a local school over there.
The Chinese school even seems to have "kitted out" Isaac and classmates in their own distinctive uniforms, of pale pink shirts, plus and white either trousers or skirts, depending on their "persuasion", perhaps (!).
To Lois and me, it all seems to be a bit of a puzzle, but no doubt we'll hear more when Isaac plus mum Alison and dad Edward come to us on Sunday evening for a meal and a "catch-up"!
Isaac and 4 of his fellow students even sang a song in Mandarin Chinese at the closing ceremony. As someone with his own rock group back here in the Hampshire/Surrey "badlands" (!), he was an obvious choice, we would imagine to perform the song!
See him perform here - he's second from left in this picture - the young scamp!!!
Yes, "young people connect, across different backgrounds", and, above all, "kindness and sincerity speak the same language".
Amen to that!!!
But wait - there's more!!!
And it seems incredible, I know, but Lois and I somehow even found time, during our incredibly busy day today, to drive to Haslemere, just over the county line in Surrey, to pick up a nice "Bramley Apple and Blackberry Crumble" for the dessert tomorrow Sunday at the meal with Isaac and his mum and dad (yum yum!!!), so that's all good!
Lois and I somehow find time in our incredibly busy day to drive to
Haslemere, just over the county line in Surrey, and pick up
this delicious-looking apple and blackberry crumble for tomorrow's meal
Yes, it'll be so nice tomorrow to see Isaac and get his personal reflections on his China study trip.
One thing that particularly puzzles Lois and me is the fact that the group, all students at our local high-school here in Liphook, seem to have been given the challenge of explaining British culture in 20 minutes to a young Chinese audience, which to Lois and me seems to be a bit of a "tall order" (!).
But what a great idea for a TV game show, if our TV channels run out of ideas after all the other game shows they broadcast every night of the week!
I wonder.....!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!
