Tag: pumpkin

Pick Your Own Pumpkins

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Halloween has never been my thing. I don’t like things jumping out at me. I don’t like creepy clowns, lunatics escaped from the asylum, vampires in their coffins or skeletons fresh from the grave. Cats are the tamest (literally) part of the whole thing and I don’t like them either (I’m very allergic).

But I love anything festive, all year round. Waiting for midnight on New Years Eve, hunting out chocolate eggs at Easter, watching fireworks fill the sky on Bonfire Night and the complete delight that is Christmas, I love them all. So I can’t skip Halloween, but it needs to be adapted. Which brings me to this Sunday’s blog post – pumpkin picking. Entirely Halloween and not remotely scary.

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Every Halloween, Secretts throw open their farm gates for Pumpkin Week. The Pick Your Own farm becomes dedicated to pumpkins and for just £1 you can jump on a tractor down to the pumpkin fields. You ramble around the field for as long as you wish, selecting the biggest, smallest, prettiest or most misshapen pumpkin you can find, before seeing which hole it fits through (each hole is a price), paying what you owe and then hopping back in the tractor to the farm.

In the run up to Halloween weekend I did my fair share of research into pick your own pumpkins, and the distinction between pumpkin field and pumpkin patch is not one to be overlooked. At pumpkin patches the pumpkins have already been picked, and are then displayed so you can pick the prettiest to take home. Pumpkin fields are the real deal, leaving you to roam around in the mud carrying as many pumpkins as you can manage. There aren’t many farms that let you lose in their pumpkins fields, but Secretts is one of them and it is definitely the only way to do it.

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Back at base, Secretts have all kinds of pumpkin treats to greet you (think tiny gourds with warm pumpkin soup inside). Or you can venture into the farm shop where they have an enormous selection of home grown fruit and veg, freshly baked breads and cakes, preserves and sauces, chocolate and confectionary, a delicatessen stocked by the in house butcher and a cheese counter with an impressive listing of over 300 cheeses. If you couldn’t find what you were after in the pick your own fields, you’ll definitely find it in the farm shop and you can rest assured that it’ll be just as fresh.

There are also cafes onsite for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea. Having worked up an appetite in the pumpkin fields, we opted for Eliza’s Teashop and warmed up over baked potatoes and homemade quiche. The perfect setting for the post-picking discussion of what exactly to do with the pumpkins (pie, soup or lantern?)

We took our pumpkins home and Tiarnan’s mum kindly whipped up a pumpkin soup, which we will be lunching on all week. Who says that Halloween needs to be scary to be fun? Certainly not me.

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Autumnal Candle Favourites

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Isn’t autumn and winter just the time for candles? When it’s grey and miserable outside there’s no better way to cosy up the house than lighting some. Here are my picks of the best autumn candles out there (and I’ve tried plenty!)

They all follow a foodie theme, but without being too sweet which, for me, is absolutely key to finding the perfect candle. There’s nothing worse than having a candle so sickly it gives you a headache (has anyone else ever suffered from this?!) They are also all not too pricey which is a bonus. I do love expensive candles and I have owned a few (when the spendy mood strikes!) but I find myself feeling guilty about burning them for too long. These ones I’ll happily burn all day.

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With candles, I have found that when you discover a brand you love – stick to it. Candles can vary so much in quality, and most of the time price is irrelevant. I’ve bought expensive candles in the past that burnt unevenly, didn’t kick off much scent and were generally a hot, waxy mess and I’ve had super cheap ones that I loved.

Also, if you are unsure whether you’ll like a scent, see if they offer it as tealights. Most of the bigger brands do this (such at The White Company and Yankee Candle) and they have really strong scents – despite being tiny little candles! Don’t be discouraged by the size, sometimes small really is mighty, and they are a great way to experiment.

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Yankee Candle Cinnamon Stick: I couldn’t do a list of affordable candles without including Yankee Candle. They are easily available, pretty cheap and come in about a million different scents. Cinnamon Stick is one of my particular favourites though. It smells of straight up cinnamon, which does give it a hint of Christmas but it still feels acceptable to burn throughout the year.

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I have the small jar, but one of the great things with Yankee Candle is the huge variety in sizes they do. Don’t be put off by the small jars though, they still have an impressive burn time of 25-40 hours and they kick off as much scent as their big sisters.

WoodWick Cinnamon Chai: This was bought for me by my lovely flatmate as part of last year’s Secret Santa. I am completely obsessed with chai lattes, hence the choice of candle, and it really couldn’t be any more me. Of course, it is similar to the Yankee Candle Cinnamon Stick and has the lovely spicy, cinnamon scent, but underneath it is the hint of being in Starbucks, which makes it slightly sweeter.

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The special thing about WoodWick candles is that the wick crackles as the candle burns. I find this really relaxing, and it makes the candle a bit different. Some might find it annoying though! The scent isn’t quite as strong as the Yankee Candle but it still kicks off more than enough scent and makes your room smell amazing.

Anthropologie Boulangerie Pumpkin Soufflé: Last of all is probably my favourite. Anthropologie is a gorgeous shop in general (amazing for window shopping!) but they have a huge variety of candles in stunning jars. This is one of their cheaper offerings, and it comes in a fairly large range. The Sweet Vanilla Cinnamon version has been on my wish list for a while!

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This is the sweetest of all of them, as it smells like pudding but still has the spicy, pumpkin undertones. This is also probably the strongest, as you can still smell it even when it isn’t burning, but not in an overpowering way and it has a lid if you want a break from it! On top of being a great candle, the beautiful jar is a real bonus. I’m planning on washing it out and turning it into a brush holder when I’m done with the candle.

Hope you enjoyed this post, thanks for reading!