Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

Alternative title Meet Titch.

Well, I've had a busy week.
I finally started making my sweets.
I've had the ideas for about a month or so and I've been itching to get started but I've had to hold back because they might go bad if I did them too soon.
I decided just to use chocolate this year for the skulls and bat-pops. I filled the skulls with oreo filling that I coloured pink to look like brains (children generally don't know that brains are more greyish and pink's just brighter). I made oreo mummy pops. Marshmallow filled chocolate eyes, with strawberry lace optic nerves. I iced the oreos that I'd emptied out and made spider web, vampire fangs and pumpkin guts cookies with them. I also made goo filled spiders, with lime jelly goo. i also made bony witch's fingers from a dense sponge and made broken bones by putting blobs of white chocolate at either end of some of the white chocolate pocky I used for the bones in the witch's fingers.
I also got a little pumpkin named Titch. I was going to do an earlier blog about it with a heading of something like "meet the (temporarily) newest member of our family [Upload picture of uncarved pumpkin] Titch".
I planned my costume about a week ago. I planned to twin a little dress that I got about 2 years ago but never wore with my long skirt. Putting on my usual black and white eye shadow face but this time having fake blood pouring from my eyes and corners of my mouth. It's pretty good.
I got some little plastic glow in the dark skeletons to stick on the windows. As soon as I saw them I imagined them dancing to Danse Macabre in the window.
So. I've been rushing around like crazy this week making sweets. The dog's not been gettign quite the attention she usually gets.

Oh. Forgot to say. Napoleon came round and went up on the roof on Sunday. And he bought a new lock for the front door. Well. Not so much lock. More the knob bit on the back of the lock. The catch had worn down and needed replacing. We've been using the deadbolt every time we shut the door (because if it came open of if the dog tried hard enough she could probably get it open and escape. Huskies are known for figuring out how to work door knobs.)

Like I said. He went on the roof, not sure if the problem's fixed but it doesn't seem to have leaked. I've moved my bed back so I have a little more room now.

I had the idea of padding out my little sweet bags with little sweets. I found some green and orange m&m's which seemed perfect. Of course I opened them up today to find that they're peanut. Now that's not such a big deal in itself. But a lot of children these days have peanut allergies. So I only put them in a couple of bags. But that means I have to ask every group whether they have peanut allergies, so that I can direct them away from the peanut bags. Now. You may wonder why I bothered with the peanut ones then. Well, statistically, it's most likely that most of the children wouldn't be allergic to peanuts. So it seemed a shame not to put them in, especially if none of the children did have an allergy.

So. While I was rushing around this week making sweets I think Yuki was a little confused about the whole thing. I wonder if I should have shown her more attention. Yesterday, after a walk and a little snack we noticed that she kept licking. Usually that means she has a hair in her mouth. But we looked and couldn't find one. Then I noticed her tooth. I've noticed that over the years her front teeth seem a bit thin nearer the roots. Initially I worried about it but I dismissed it as it being that her teeth may have grown a little since we first got her.
Well. Yesterday one of her front teeth was out of place. I looked closer and saw that it was loose. I worked myself into a panic about that. I was waiting for her to work it loose. I haven't been able to find it, so I think she swallowed it. That worried me too.
Mum took her to the vet this morning and he said that she was okay and that some dogs get thin teeth which are more likely to fall out. She'll probably lose a couple more. But her bottom teeth should be fine and her canines too. It's kind of a shame. I liked her front teeth, not as much as her canines but still. She's a canine with canines .

I slept in pretty late this morning because mum wasn't at work today. I keep thinking it's Saturday. I dreamt that I'd missed Halloween and then that I hadn't missed it but no children came, I stayed in costume until 5am in vain.

I'm not sure why, but when I got up I thought I had to be ready for 9pm. 5pm and beyond was the more realistic time, which mum reminded me of. So I spent an hour or so madly rushing around trying to sort everything out.
I didn't put all of the sweets in the bags, just enough to fill the bowl. Then I carved Titch quicker than I've carved my previous pumpkins. He's smaller so there was less to do. Since he's smaller I went for something slightly cuter with a slightly catty grin. Then I sorted out my costume. I could hear children's voices from the bathroom but couldn't pinpoint where they were (they could've been the neighbour's children or ones out in the streets, things echo and you can't really pinpoint where they're coming from in the bathroom, I keep hearing a doorbell, no idea where it is. It's not ours, that's for sure, ours has never worked because it was painted over). Everything was ready just in time for our first trick or treaters.

I took brief notes.

The first one was a little boy with inflatable vampire wings. He asked me what I was supposed to be (ghost/undead/possessed by evil spirits person with a deathly complexion and blood coming from my eyes and mouth, is a black, and kind of swishy dress (though it was actually a little dress with a long skirt but that was hard to tell in the dim light) wearing monochrome stripy socks and black Doc Martens (the socks actually have cute little faces at the toes but that couldn't be seen)). I answered that I wasn't quite sure myself, to add an air of mystery. I probably should have gone with "this is how I always look" just to see his reaction.
Because the sweets were all in little bags (the corners of sandwich bags tied with ribbon (red, purple and sliver this year)) it was hard to tell what was in there, so he asked what they were. I told him there were witch's fingers, spooky skulls, marshmallow eyes, gooey spiders and broken bones (forgot about the iced oreos and mummy pops). He gave the most brilliant response that I'm still not quite sure whether I'm pleased or insulted by.

"Ew." Well. A sound to that effect.

He took a bag anyway. I think it was one with a white chocolate bat pop.

Now. I told you about the peanut problem. So for subsequent visitors I informed them of the peanuts in case of allergies.

The next group came soon after the first one. An assorted mix of 5-6 little children with an older child and about four parents, one came to the door with them and the others stayed by the gate. I informed him of the peanuts (as it was a big group, and most likely not all from one family, it was hard to ask about allergies specifically. He said he'd let the others know. That way the parents can deal with it.) I don't think I needed to worry so much about the peanuts but it is a very common allergy so you have to be careful. If I'd paid attention to the packet before I bought it I never would have gotten it. But, as it stood, I felt the bags needed a little padding.

Also, to inform the parent about the peanuts I had to break character (my posh voice) which was kind of annoying. But I had to use my normal voice otherwise he'd think I wasn't taking it seriously.
After that I asked the child, or parent about peanut allergies. No on all occasions. Also, to make matters worse, the remaining peanut ones didn't really go. I think there are about 3 out of maybe 6-7 that had peanut m&m's left over.

I imagine it was a little odd to have the adult with the sweets ask if you're allergic to peanuts, especially for a small child, but I had to ask. The parents were all in earshot so if the child didn't know or just didn't answer the parent would say no. So I said the child could have any bag they wanted (almost like not having an allergy merits a reward). If one had said they have an allergy I would have told them not to take a certain bag (the ones with the peanuts. They're orange and green and the green ones are the only green things there so they were easy to single out if needed). I just felt that I should be very careful. Because it's an odd question, and if you're worried about it you shouldn't be giving out peanuts in the first place, I briefly explained to the parents that I'd gotten peanut ones by mistake so had to ask in case. They seemed grateful for my concern, even though their children didn't have peanut allergies. Since I was worried I probably shouldn't have put them in. But I had my heart rather set on little green and orange m&m's complimenting my sweets and making the bags look brighter. And the chances of there being an allergy were pretty low, so why should I deprive those without allergies of the peanut ones? I only used about half the bag. i couldn't bring myself to use them all.

Anyway. After that group I made up the rest of the bags. Along with m&m's I also had some cheap foil wrapped sweets, white chocolate brains (well, the wrappers have brains, the chocolate is more like half a tiny Easter egg with sickly white chocolate goo inside), little pumpkins (I used 4 of them for my spider heads. They're just cheap little solid chocolate balls with pumpkin wrappers) and strawberry laces (Forgot I had those, the week before I got them I'd gotten a pack of different coloured laces. I used the strawberry for the optic nerve and the purple ones for spider legs. I shared the orange and yellow with mum. Probably should have saved them to brighten up the bags a bit more. Didn't think about that at the time.)
Then we had one child, the first one I directly asked whether he was allergic to peanuts. He seemed a little bewildered by that.
Then two, one with a skull mask who hung back a bit and one with a devil mask who was more foreward.
Then a group of two, but a parent brought up a very little one for a bag (probably it's first trick or treat, it was that young. I think it was a little girl but you can never be too sure)
Then one who was a little pirate. His had fell off as he was leaving.
Then just one more who came so close he was very nearly stepping inside the house. Aren't you supposed to keep demons/spirits/monsters from coming into your house on Halloween and here we've got one trying to get in . I guess a child in a costume isn't really so ghoulish though.
And that was it. I stayed in costume until about 9:40ish but I could've before 9 if I'd known that was the last of them. Titch stayed lit until the cangle burnt down. I'm very pleased with him for that. He's in the fridge now (first one to fit without being cut up first) to try and stop him rotting too early.
I've been thinking of pumpkin soup this year. Pumpkin, pea and potato maybe. Something like that.

So. I think I counted eleven bags of sweets leftover. Three witch's fingers. That's a shame. I was very proud of them. All the bat pops are gone. One spider left over. Not sure who's going to eat it. It's lime jelly. I don't like lime. Mum does. But it's dark chocolate. I like it. Mum doesn't. Two eyes. A couple of mummy pops. A few bags of skulls. A bag of broken bones. I was a bit worried about those. They weren't very well done and if they snapped in half in the bag I was worried that they could be misconstrued as being a bit phallic. It should be fine though because they went in whole so if the ones that I put in other bags as filler broke at some point the parents would surely see that it clearly went in the bag as a whole thing and that it's meant to look like a bone rather than well you know. But I know some people do have, as they say, dirty minds and I'd hate for parents to think that their children had been given something inappropriate in a bag of sweets. I'm over thinking it. I just worry. Sometimes it's easy to be misunderstood and it's not like the parents know me, I'm just a random stranger to them and social anxiety makes it tricky to be understood sometimes.

Anyway. That was my Halloween.

I already have a new idea for next year. Chocolate coffins. But maybe biscuits would be easier .

Pictures pending.
No there will be none of me in costume. You know I'm paranoid about that kind of thing. I was worried about leaving fingerprints in the chocolate and on the ribbons too. I'm very paranoid about my fingerprints, and my DNA. Probably seen too much CSI.

Bluebiird out.

Having a picture problem here. Oh well.
Reducing the picture quality was a bit of a nightmare but here we go. I plan to put the rest in a separate blog.

Here is Titch. He's quite sweet. I was going for something a little cat like this time.
titch.JPG

These are the pocky bones that I made quickly. They're not that great but I think it's obvious they're meant to look like bones.
bones.JPG

These are my iced oreos.
cookies.jpg
I put black edible glitter on the spider web ones so they were pretty and sparkly. I called them cursed cookies. I rather had my heart set on making pumpkin ones and then adding this orange "sugar sand" I got a couple of weeks ago. But the icing was too runny and didn't stick so well, so I just did squiggles and called them pumpkin guts. Getting the fangs on the vampire ones to actually look like fangs was a little tricky but I think I pulled it off. Only trouble is I had to leave them out overnight for the icing to set so the oreos all went a little soggy. But, in truth, I kind of like them that way. cing the oreos was a pretty good idea, because I wanted to do some kind of iced biscuits but didn't want to bake any and I needed to do something with the leftover biscuits once I'd scooped out the filling of the oreos to make skull brains.