With 2020 being a year of limitations and restrictions we have been more determined to celebrate every day and to make all events this year bigger and better than ever, we have a lot to make up for.

Halloween is now celebrated more widely than it had been when I was younger. We would acknowledge it, we would tell spooky stories and look up into the night sky in the hope of catching a glimpse of a witch, flying past on her broomstick. 

Halloween is not for everyone; it is much more of a children’s event than adults, but we like to celebrate it in our own way. At Timken the lifestyle team meet with us to discuss occasions such as this, they ask for our views on how we’d like to celebrate them.

We all agreed that we’d like to carve pumpkins, this is harder than it looks but it was fun. We chatted as we scooped, remembering our experiences of pumpkin picking and making pumpkin stew. The team had never had pumpkin stew but back when we were young, if it grew and it was edible it went in a stew.

After lunch we played quoits, the pegs had been replaced with spider legs and witches hats, very spooky especially for the arachnophobes among us. This is a fun game, some of the residents get quite competitive, it makes us laugh. We went off for tea assuming that our Halloween celebrations were over for the day, so imagine our delight when we were then invited into the cinema room for a Halloween themed cocktail party. I never say no to a cocktail or two.

It was such a lovely end to the day, we had great conversations about Halloweens past, remembering costumes made of sheets and bin liners, a bit different to today. This is such a lovely time of year, so much colour and fun. Halloween was wonderful and we still have fireworks and Christmas to look forward to.