Hallowe'en/Samhain 2022

Last Monday it was Hallowe'en and Samhain (31st October). I celebrated with a pumpkin and by having some food and drink. I baked gingerbread skeletons and made my favourite Demon's Blood drink (ginger beer mixed with orange juice and apple juice, and dyed green). The drink recipe is from The Real Witches' Kitchen book by Kate West.

I also made some potato salad, based on a recipe from The Kitchen Witch by Soraya. I normally use chives/and or spring onion instead of rosemary because I like it better. This year I used spring onion because I couldn't get any chives.

 Here is a picture of my pumpkin:

 

I also had an orange candle and some decorations (knitted ghosts and hearts and a pumpkin, a pumpkin candle, a pumpkin decoration and lights). Here's a pic:

 

As I said in my Happy Samhain/Hallowe'en! post, I baked gingerbread skeletons (I usually make either those or chocolate ginger bats). The recipe is an old one from Closer magazine. I don't think it's online anymore but here's a similar one for Christmas gingerbread that can be adapted (both of them are Flora recipes but I normally use butter): https://www.flora.com/en-gb/flora/recipe/gingerbread-biscuits-183529

They got a bit burnt but were quite nice apart from that! I used ready-made white chocolate icing for decorating them this year and did up a couple like screaming faces! I also made one round gingerbread biscuit with a screaming face. I did also do a couple without heads inspired by an Injurebread men recipe from Asda, but one of the men/skeletons was smaller and the head got a bit burnt! Here's a picture of the rest:

 

 

I usually go up to my favourite reserve on a hill around Samhain for sunset (probably the last time I will go before winter) and I went the next day (1st Nov), but the weather wasn't great. There wasn't a proper sunset but here's a photo I took: 

 

Bit of a sunset on Mill Hill!

 

It was stormy and there were really strong winds on Samhain, and although it did clear up a bit the next day, the weather wasn't that good until Friday. That was a sunnier day, so I went back to Mill Hill and it was a nice sunset. Here's a photo from that day:

 

Sunset on Mill Hill, Shoreham-by-sea.

 

It's really feeling like a shift towards winter now! The clocks went back the day before Hallowe'en and now it's getting dark around 4.25pm. It's gone colder (around 14C/57F during the day and sometimes down to 9C/48F at night, although it's a bit warmer tonight) and the weather has been rainy and windy again for the past few days. It's actually warmer than it was last year though.

As I said in my recent summer-autumn update post, I can find this time of year hard with the shortening days and colder weather. It's still autumn for a few weeks though and then I do look forward to Christmas. And of course, the next sabbat is Yule/the Winter Solstice just before Christmas. I'll probably do a celebration post nearer the time.

Hope you had a good Samhain! (Or Beltane depending where you are!) :)