Pumpkin Picking in Peterborough

Try saying that when you've had a tipple.....

Well as you may have guessed from the title we did in fact go pumpkin picking this weekend.  A first for the Hill family and for a change the entire family all went together, even the grumpy teenager and maybe even grumpier mother.  Some of us where more prepared than others, to the extent that wellingtons where brought with, even though teenage daughter decided she didn't actually need them (she did, she really really did). As the last pair of wellies other half owned, accidentally ended up in the bin somehow (I have no idea, honest) he had to face the muddy fields in his trainers, bright white Nikes. Not a prospect he relished but he managed to put a brave face on it and forge on (will be purchasing new wellies asap).  The farm was set over 14 acres of land with a small orchard with plum, apples and pear trees.  A small area filled with sweetcorn and rows of raspberries and blackberries.  The kids made a half heart attempt to pick the fruit but it is a bit late in the season and so the plums left on the trees where quite high up (cue daddy pulling branches down for little arms and hands to reach) and the berry bushes had either been picked dry by the crows or had shrivelled up little bunches of yuck on them.  We weren't there for this petty distractions though, we and the few other families that arrived as we did where there for the main event, the big show, the massive veg. 

So once the troop was gathered back together from their various foraging or in Humf's case, shouted at to get off the tire swing for the 15th time. We headed over to the pumpkin patch, and yes that is exactly what it is, a patch of land with various sized pumpkins just lying on ground waiting to be picked.

Daddy and Humf where on wheel barrow duty which was working out fine until Humf decided he could "manage" himself, think, up turned wheelbarrow immediately.  Then when we finally got down to the pumpkin patch the kids got pretty freaked out by the scarecrow, it was a shop floor mannequin with the most realistic eyes I have ever seen..even had veins running through them.!!! So once recovered from the scare from the scarecrow the kids all wandered off to pick their special pumpkin.  While Daddy and I looked on not really wanting to enter the quagmire, chatting away, Daddy notices Humf out of the corner of his eye and as I look round at what he's staring out, I see Humf pulling up his trousers...yes, he'd just wee'd in the pumpkin patch...nice !!  After this little episode, we hurriedly got the kids to choose their pumpkins and promptly wheel barrowed them back to the till in the hut, where we priced our pumpkins by their size.  Do they fit in the hole £1.50 £2.25 £3.50 up to £9 of course all our pumpkins where too big for the cheaper hole but not quite big enough for the more expensive ones but of course we had to pay the more expensive price anyway.  £20 on pumpkins !!! I so need to use these for food not just for Halloween faces, so shall be probably blogging later on in the month about all these fantastic pumpkin recipes I have found and we have all tried. Defiantly going to roast those seeds though, they are a serious yummy treat :-) 

Autumn Picnic

So at the weekend we went for a picnic by the lake.  A totally impromptu decision as most of this families are.  The weather was beautiful and I didn't need to fuss about making sandwiches and taking mosquito repellent. We just grabbed a couple of sandwiches from the local supermarket and headed off for our walk. For once the kids didn't moan, while my boys are quite an active pair, to randomly walk somewhere, with no specific destination or reason, just seems utterly pointless to them. But with bellies full and giggles at ducks they were happy to just cruise along the path with us.  The photographers where quite out in force and for this I was very grateful as I could just pop over and see what they were looking at and grab a few shots for myself.  We stop by one lady who was taking a picture of a large group of thistles, not an interesting subject you may think, until she pointed out the enormous blue dragonfly perched quite contentedly on this spiky plant not bothered at all that we were all excited to see it up close.  Daddy could see "ole itching fingers" wanting to grab, shake or distract the bug so gave Humf a good sharp warning as the other photographer and I snapped away, while doing this Ninja decided to stick his oar in and give the thistle a good rustle.  We all gasped as the dragonfly flew away, and the sheer disappointment on all our faces must have hit him like a stone.  While I desperately try to apologise to the other photographer for my child's insensitive behaviour, Daddy took Ninja away and tried to explain to him why we were all so disappointed by what he'd done. Bless him when he finally recognised what he'd done, he pretty much fell apart, (that boy is far to much like me) and no amount of soothing words and it doesn't matters left him feeling any better.  The whole think before you act thing, we all have to learn at some point had got him good and proper.  We managed after a good 10 minutes of break your heart stuff like, why am I so stupid, why did I have to do it, why do I never listen. He finally calmed down and we carried on our walk round the lake to the play area. By this time whinge pants had given up being the good one (for a change) and had reverted back to normal state of, the one you have to watch like a hawk and was good and ready to cause some mischief.  Luckily the park wasn't too busy and he was pretty much left to himself to play on whatever he wanted without getting up anyone elses nose.  Why do they never want to leave, it always gets me how, it doesn't matter how long you stay in that play area, they always want 5 more minutes, sometimes I look at them and wonder what it feels like to be them, looking at all the things around me with my head whirling with imaginative adventures, instead of sitting there watching them panicking that they are going to fall and hurt themselves. In the end they finally got tired enough that they didn't complain to much when we said it was time to leave and as we walked back to the car we did a bug hunt and were very successful in our finds.