Carving a pumpkin is now an essential part of childhood. We have always carved a small pumpkin at home. When I say we I mean hubby has usually using tools from the toolbox with the chisel featuring heavily. We manage a standard type of scary face, the pumpkin has never been able to better some of our neighbours, who go to town with cats and witch carving presumbaly with the help of a pumpkin carving kit and template.
I was therefore really pleased to see that the National Trust were holding pumpkin carving session at Claremont Gardens in Esher. Not too sure whether it counts as one of their 52 Things, but if it isn’t it should be high on the list. We weren’t too sure what to expect andIi think I was hoping that it would all be created for us. So we chose a larger pumpkin than we usually would and went into a very busy Claremont Gardens. It was great to see so many families outdoors and enjoying themselves.
It was an DIY activity and it was great fun. We were in the open air, surrounded by a beautiful landscape garden, in the company of other families madly scooping and carving I learnt that simple metal spoons and ice cream scoops work well to help empty the pumpkin of all the seeds and soft material. My 8 year old went for it big time so much so that I did not have to do a thing. All the work on our pumpkin was undertaken by him.
Using a template certainly helped.
We didn’t manage pumpkins looking quite as grand as those located in the garden, though I have logged scrapping the orange skin off to reveal the whiter flesh as something we may try next year.
Our nightime effects were suitably spooky. Hope everyone had a great Halloween.
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