I don’t agree with competitions. Art should not be judged. But an evil competitive streak has been awakened. The seven stages of entering a pumpkin competition begin.
Step one Choose a setting.

Step two. Clear the area senseless.

Step three. Assess your pumpkin. Decide there is more chance of winning with multiple pumpkins.

In my haste to get the largest pumpkin of them all I accidentally chose the rottenest. Will the pumpkin rot out before the weekend? Or can it be carved around the rotten bit? Gather butternut squash as backup.
Step Four. Carve. On reflection this could be where we fell down. A pumpkin takes 10 minutes to carve. It has a hole in the head, two eyes, a mouth and maybe a nose. How was I to know that Other People would be doing baby pumpkins within pumpkins, 3D hands coming out of bloody pumpkins, spider lace effect witchery and, sinking to emotional blackmail, intricate lettering saying ‘NHS’ all over the place? Some of the pumpkins had wigs and others were dressed up randomly as pirates. Why pirates? There should be guidelines on all this. If you refer back to the competition poster on last week’s post you will see that there were none. The whole thing is a travesty.
Step Five. Lay out your pumpkins.

Sept Six. Add lights and smoke.

Step Seven. Lurk around. Happen to casually walk out when families pass by.

So now the long wait to see who won. This is how it must feel in America. Luckily time flies when you are panic buying pasta and it’s that time of year again too.
Back in the garden, there are leaves everywhere and something has to be done about them.

Sounds stressful! And then to be ecologically sound you have to eat pumpkin soup. Yuk! I’m glad I’m hidden away. Good luck 🍀
The pumpkins and everything in them are now in the compost, being ecologically sound and not pumpkin soup.
brillant. If you don’t win remember completion is bad and pointless. If you win the opposite is true.
Very very funny Jo. We are giggling away in bed reading this. Hope you win!.
We would only win if we find a judge to bribe. Some of the pumpkins were truly amazing. Especially the pirates.
Ha! Jo, you are so good at showing up all our human foibles! How delicious.
We love you! xxx
Brilliant post Jo. Bonny’s obsrvation on competing is so true 🙂 and remember it’s the taking part that counts -right? Looking forward to the next post with the resultsxx
Me too. If we don’t win I could write a post about unfairness and corruption
Big Smile. You makes I laugh! x