Catching up

We were going to blog yesterday, we really were.

Unfortunately, after a stroll around Chiltern Open Air Museum, 

we were overtaken by indolence ...

But here's what we saw there as we caught up on all

the happenings that had been happening since Angel was ill.

 Thatching has started at Leagrave Cottages.

We are looking forward to seeing a straw whippet running

along the top when it is completed.

We did a quick Health & Safety check and were pleased to see

that someone has thoughtfully placed  padding round the scaffolding

at whippet head height.

 

And then we looked at the giant pumpkin, and entered the competition

to guess how much it weighed.

We reckoned about two and a half wippitt-weight.

Unfortunately guesses had to be in metric so we made

the Madwoman sit down in the wet grass and remove her boots and socks

so she could do the calculations on fingers and toes, and convert that into kilos. 

As we seem to be playing catch-up, here is a pic of when Angel was poorly,

with Archie acting as Head Nurse and assistant Worrier.

(The Madwoman was the Head Worrier and Wielder of the Thermometer)

And here is Angel with the card kindly sent by Penny Dolan ...

Tomorrow it is Angel's 11th birthday, and we have been promised a special

elevenses for her elevenses.

It's all go at the top ...

Yes, it's been another one of those action-packed weeks.

We started off with Archie's birthday on Monday, (which involved going for a walk at Chiltern Open Air Museum the day before so we could buy his birthday cake at the cafe)

 As we walked back through the woods, the Madwoman suggested having cake al fresco. Strange because we thought it looked like a blueberry muffin. It certainly smelled like a blueberry muffin. Although we have no idea what an al fresco smells like. Maybe its some kind of exotic blueberry?

In the end we decided to save the cake for Archie's birthday proper on Monday.

Nom nom nom.

It was worth the wait.

And definitely tasted of blueberry.

 

Then there was a birthday walk and games to play ... 

 Unwrapping of presents followed by an introductory tour of the garden with them  

 And then of course, we had to supervise the setting-up and taking-down of all the things for the Halloween Spooktacular at Chiltern Open Air Museum yesterday and today. 

 This year there was a pet shop ...

And there was a real, smoke breathing dragon in one of the upstairs rooms of the pet shop (which was of course, located in Dragon Alley) ... 

And there were goblins playing in the cobblers ...

And a Wolfman in the outside toilet ...

it made the Madwoman squawk a bit when it first jumped out at her,

but we were calm as anything. Naturally.

No point in getting older if you don't get no wiser, as they say,

although this bit of advice appears to have passed completely over the top of the Madwoman's head.

Anyway, we now have to go take a nap because very soon we will have to go and do more supervising, this time of pumpkin-head carving in time for the arrival of trick-or-treaters tonight.

Eeeeeeek!

No sooner had we recovered from all the excitement of having birthdays

than Halloween was upon us.

We went for our usual Halloween Ghost walk at Chiltern Open Air Museum. 

Fun.

Except for the teddy bear massacre. 

We found that deeply disturbing and no matter how much

the Madwoman coaxed, cajoled and reassured us,

refused to go anywhere near it.

We found the pumpkin that the Madwoman carved ...

and some hard hats pulling faces and making rude hand signals ...

Yeah, definitely a Nazgul. We can tick that off in our
Eye-Spy book of British Wildlife now

And the infamous teddy bear massacre ...

And this is the pumpkin the Madwoman carved for our own front door at home ...

and the stone wippitts all lit up with their lanterns

Keeping busy

It's a regular hive of industry up at the Chiltern Open Air Museum at the moment.

We keep spotting Halloweeny things being crafted by folk during slack moments on the front desk for example.

 Not to mention this pile of pumpkins awaiting transformation into scary candle-lit faces ...

The Madwoman is also busy with a Halloween countdown over on the Facebook page HERE for her book, Haunting Hounds, which you can buy HERE and read more about on its website HERE.
It's all in a good cause, with 50% of al profits
going to Scruples Whippet Rescue.

So naturally we have been assisting her ...

Boo!

We went on the Halloween walk at the Chiltern Open Air Museum last Friday - we always go during the afternoon rather than when it is dark, with the trail lit by candles and pumpkin heads. We think the Madwoman is worried it might be a bit too scary for us, but we think this is just an excuse and it's really the other way round. First up was this spooky spook in one of the barns - it fluttered and made eerie rustly sounds as the breeze caught it.

Then we found this pair out in the woods. Careful, you could have someone's eye out with that. Oh, you already have. Your own ...

And then there were the huge bats overhead everywhere ...

We tracked down three of the COAM witches responsible for some of this. You can tell they are witches because they are weraring pointy hats. It's a sure sign of a witch.

 

Hmmm ... two scarecrows evidently got a bit careless playing round the harrow.
Should have stuck to scaring crows.

 More bats ... Good thing we like bats. The Madwoman watches them flittering about in the back garden in summer.

Not so keen on these though. A monster spider crawling out of the dunny.  Personally we prefer to use the huge bathroom that is the great outdoors. Although you do need to be careful about nettles and thistles. Long wet grass or deep snow isn't good either. But at least there's no risk of a bite on the bum from a spider!

Another toilet ... with a mummy sitting on it. If there's a nationwide shortage of toilet paper this year, you'll know who to hold responsible ...