Hallowe'en/Samhain 2023

Last Tuesday (31st October) it was Hallowe'en and Samhain. I celebrated by carving a pumpkin and having some food and drink. I baked gingerbread skeletons and made some potato salad based on a recipe from the book The Kitchen Witch by Soraya. It requires rosemary and garlic, but I used chives and spring onion instead of rosemary because I prefer them.

I also made my favourite Demon's Blood drink (ginger beer mixed with apple juice and orange juice), which is a recipe from Kate West's book The Real Witches' Kitchen. I had the potato salad and drink with some buffet type food from the supermarket.

Here's a picture of the pumpkin: 

 

I also set up a sort of Hallowe'en altar like previous years, with some tealights in pumpkin containers, some knitted decorations (ghosts, pumpkins and hearts) and pumpkin lights etc. I had a  Pumpkin Harvest Yankee candle but had trouble getting it to light properly, which was a shame.

Here's a picture of the decorations:

I normally use a recipe from Closer magazine (a Flora one that was in an old issue) for the gingerbread. (I either make those or chocolate ginger bats.) I don't think the recipe is online anymore but I linked to a similar one in last year's Halloween/Samhain post.

For this Samhain I considered trying another recipe, and thought about this one that I made in 2019: https://crumbscorkscrews.com/halloween-gingerbread-men/

They didn't come out so well though, they puffed up while baking. So in the end I used this one from OK! magazine: https://www.ok.co.uk/lifestyle/halloween-skeleton-biscuits-you-can-31260130

This recipe is very similar to the one I usually make, except it has mixed spice in it. The gingerbread was quite nice. The ones from OK! are decorated with ready to roll icing but I used a squeezy ready made one. (Some years I make up my own like for the gingerbread I make for Lammas.) 

Here's a pic:

I gave some of them screaming faces! lol.

 

The next day I went up to my favourite nature reserve on a hill to take sunset pics (something I like to do for sabbats mainly in the warmer months). The weather hadn't been great and there wasn't much of a sunset, but there was some blue sky. Here's a photo:

Mill Hill, Shoreham-by-sea.

The weather has been very windy and rainy lately, and "Storm Ciaran" started in the middle of the week. Luckily it wasn't too bad in my area of Sussex. The weather was a bit better yesterday (which was Bonfire Night but I didn't go to any fireworks this year) and so I went to Mill Hill again. I thought there wasn't going to be that much of a sunset again but it came out more towards the end! 

Here's a photo:

More colours came out later on!

 

It was similar to last year, when was there a more of a sunset a few days later. The weather is so changeable and sunsets (and sunrises) are all so different, never exactly the same! When I'm going through a down time it can help to concentrate on simple things to be grateful for, like sunsets.

So now we're in November! As I said in my summer-autmun update post (where I also shared a few links for celebrating Samhain and Hallowe'en), we're well into autumn now, but this time of year is when it starts feeling significantly colder (depending on your area). Late October/early November is when you can often really feel the start of  winter (appropriate, since Samhain marks the end of summer/warmer times and the start of winter/colder times). With the clocks going back in the UK on the last Sunday in October, the already shortening days mean it gets darker an hour earlier. Sunset time is about 4.28pm now, 13 minutes shorter than when I wrote my summer-autumn update at the end of October.

It's also getting colder, about 14C (about 57F) during the day and 6C (42F) at night. So not that cold yet but you can feel the difference. Although I struggle to adjust at this time of year, I do like all the autumn beauty. :) The next sabbat will be Yule/the Winter Solstice in December and then we will be in winter, with not long to go till Christmas! I will do a post about my celebrations. :)

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