Halloween

Pumpkins, pumpkins and more pumpkins... its 31 October and Canada is having halloween. For the last few weeks, people have been decorating their houses with pumpkins, spider webs, beware signs and various other bits and pieces. Its been quite entertaining, seeing what everyone does. Virtually every house has at least a pumkin or 2 on their verandah and the more adventurous range up to whole Vampire dinner parties, with all the trimmings.

I had my first taste of halloween, by going to the pumkin farm and choosing a pumpkin to carve.




We then went back and had to carve the pumkin. This involves removing the VERY slimy innards and scraping out all the pips and other slimy muck from inside. A face is then drawn on the outside and the carving begins. It is much harder than it looks, but I think the end product was pretty acceptable for my first carved pumpkin.






And sitting on the verandah...



I do have to admit, some people go to town with their pumpkins and they look amazing. Mine was a very simple one...

I joined up with a famiy from church to go trick and treating, as they have little children and it was quite fun watching the children go from house to house all dressed up, collecting candy. The whole street gets involved and for 2 hours the street is alive with kids running around getting candy.

The area I was in, even had a play put on outside the one house, with stage lights and music etc. (the owner is in the film industry!) Quite well done and a good laugh.

And Fall begins!

Officially summer is now over and we have moved into Fall - note the correct usage of Canadian terms!

We have had some chilly starts to the day, but it has generally been warm during the day and of course we still have our glorious blue sky :-) After 10 years of predominantly grey, I still love it every single morning when its blue. I think its the thing I love the most - and the space and lack of people. Its marvellous.

I have now moved into my new appartment (flat is apparently a UK word) and am feeling much more settled being in my own place. It is so big, I feel like a queen in my palace. So if anyone wants to come to Toronto for a holiday, I have a spare room. I'll post some photos once I have tidied it up properly. I bought my electrical goods today - so now have no excuse for not ironing my clothes or vaccuming the floor!

Yesterday, I drove North of Toronto to see the fall colours. The colours are amazing. In the UK, the leaves are very pretty, but are predominatly yellow, whereas here, they are all shades of yellow, orange and red. Really stunning. It was such a serendipity (always wanted to use that word!!) when we came across a lake surrounded by forest.



The water in the lake is so clear as well.

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These are a few more pictures of the leaves and changing colours...









And how about this as a location for my house one day? Pretty, isn't it? And who knows, there may even be a few of the Canadian Moose hiding in the forest.




Apparently these lakes freeze over in winter. I can't wait to come back again to see what that is like. I'm keen to try ice skating on a lake - I wonder if we are allowed to? I think winter is going to be such fun :-) I can't wait for it.

This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend, which is a big thing in Canada and the USA (althought the USA only has it in November). I had pumkin pie for the first time - its really nice. Pumpkin and cinamen and other spices in a pastry shell, and most people eat it with whipped cream. Halloween is also big here and it should be fun to see what it is all about. I think my traditional views are a little off the mark!! It seems to be as much fun as Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny ;-)