Pumpkin Attempt 2014

I like to try and carve a pumpkin every year for Halloween so trick or treaters know they can come to my house for sweets. 

I usually go for a face but I thought this year I'd up the stakes and so I googled a template. 

Drew it on in gel pen and then set about gutting out the pumpkin. 

Barclay the cat wasn't loving the smell.

Then I set to work carving with a smaller knife. You know I should really get one of those kits with the special tools in... never mind,

Cat pumpkin is now in pride of place with a candle in to welcome children to my house (sounds sinister doesn't it!?). 

Also, on another note, I got carried away with the Christmas things in Marks and Spencer and so I bought a pack of dried mulled wine berries and cinnamon and stuff. Only I don't like red wine so I've put it in apple juice to make hot spiced apple. Yum! Hurrah for Autumn!

Red Herring

Have you guys played Red Herring? It's an app on iPhone (free!) and it's a kind of puzzle type game. 

You choose a difficulty level and then you have to sort the words it gives you into categories. 

But some of the words can be put into different categories - the red herrings! 

I like to do the puzzles when I'm on the bus and when you complete all of them (there's a lot!) you can buy more or you can do the free puzzle that gets delivered every day. 

The only problem with this app is that it's American, so some celebrities or brand names I didn't know. 

Other than that it's a great boredom buster. Go download it, I promise you'll be hooked (pun intended). 

Scaresville 2014

It's Halloween soon... and for my annual Halloween activity some nursing friends and I went to Scaresville, driven by the very capable Jo. You might remember I went last year with my lovely chum Kiran and her work mates. 

The unfair ground was smaller than last year but we all got dinner there (mm hot dogs), measured our heights (haha, Nancy's a hobbit) and waited for our ticket numbers to be called. 

And then we entered the queue to go to the stables, where there was a video before entering... the scare zone (it was really called that!). 

The horror trail took us an hour and a half to get through, winding through out buildings, a hedge maze, woodland, farm fields, over bridges and into tents - all in darkness! I laughed so hard. 

Here's what my camera could see... (nothing basically). The tickets were just over £20 but it was really worth it, it felt like it took a really long time with all sorts of scares from clowns to people with chain saws, masks, hazmat suits... you name it. I did notice there were less scarers than last year but I think the scarers are volunteers so I suppose that can't be helped and it probably varies night to night. 

And then like last year you escaped the scare zone into the bar, sadly it was without the screen so you could watch other people getting scared but luckily it was still serving hot spiced apple so I forgave them. 

Tired Out

So I'm unpacked and in my new place and gave back the keys for my old; Barclay's just pleased I've unpacked his toys. 

But cocktails with the lovely Anastasia cheered me up this week. She ordered a white Russian (she's white and Russian so this made me laugh).

It's so weird, I've heard a ton about it but I'd never been to Franks Bar in Norwich, I had a really tasty cocktail called apple crumble and it really tasted like that! 

But other things like changing my address (including an 18 minute long conversation with Scottish Widows!) have been much less fun and because of all this moving I am so behind on my dissertation. Wah :(

I was thinking today, I don't get body warmers. I never have a situation where my arms are hot but my body is cold. Surely no one does... why do they exist??