Hallowe'en/Samhain 2018

Last Wednesday it was Hallowe'en/Samhain. As I mentioned in my post Celebrating Samhain/Halloween, I had a pumpkin and made some food and drink. I made my usual Demon's Blood (a Kate West recipe of ginger beer mixed with apple and orange juice, and dyed green), and potato salad which I've done for the past few years. It's based on a recipe from The Kitchen Witch by Soraya, but I did it with spring onion and chives. I made some fire roasted potatoes as well, which is a recipe from last year's Co-Op magazine. (I think it's a Bonfire Night recipe but we're in that season as well, and I did go to a firework display on Hallowe'en itself, since it happened to be that Wednesday!) I'll probably share firework pics in another post. :)


Here's a picture of the pumpkin and pumpkin lantern (both have tealights inside):

Came out a bit blurry but nice effect!

I also had an orange candle, a green candle and a Yankee Witches' Brew one. Here's a photo of some of the decorations.

I usually bake gingerbread and this year I made gingerbread skeletons, a recipe that I previously used in 2015 and 2016. I had a bit of trouble with the mixture so didn't make as many as planned. I ended up making 5 gingerbread men and a couple of "disembodied heads"! lol. Here's a pic of the first lot of gingerbread:

The icing ran a bit!

The day after Samhain (Thursday) I went up to my favourite nature reserve and took some sunset pics. I like to do that on some of the sabbats and I last went around Madron. Here are a couple of the photos:

Sunset on Mill Hill, Shoreham-by-sea

Hope everyone had a good Hallowe'en/Samhain! (Or Beltane depending on what you were celebrating!).  :)

We're properly descending into the "dark time" of the year now, and the next sabbat will be Yule which is about celebrating the return of the light. (And then it will be Christmas right after!) .

 

If you're looking for some late autumn inspiration check out these posts: 

Autumn photos + inspiration: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/10/autumn-photos-inspiration.html

Ideas for a magical November from Tess Whitehurst: https://tesswhitehurst.com/11-ideas-for-a-magical-november-2/

Also it's Bonfire Night tomorrow, so you might like these posts as well:

Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes Night) info: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2014/11/bonfire-night.html

My Bonfire Night parkin (cake) and last year's fireworks: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/11/bonfire-night-parkin-fireworks.html