PUMPKINS

I was at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle this afternoon to see a production of Sunset Boulevard.  It was wonderful. I wasn't familiar with the leading lady - Ria Jones but she was excellent. The leading man was Danny Mac.  I think he used to be in Hollyoaks and I remember seeing him on Strictly.  He played his part very well ( and he's very fit too ).

Did a bit of shopping in town after the theatre including getting a few things in Poundland - which is where I took my blip shot.  The Abstract Thursday challenge today is " Seasons" so I decided to blip some ceramic pumpkins which were on the shelves. Its definitely pumpkin season - they are everywhere.  Fresh ones as well as novelty ones.  I did some zoomy processing to make my image an abstract. Thanks to Ingeborg for hosting the challenge.

Pumpkins are commonly carved into decorative lanterns called jack o' lanterns for the Halloween season in North America. Throughout Britain and Ireland there is a long tradition of carving lanterns from vegetables particularly the turnip or swede. Irish immigrants to America used native pumpkins which were both readily available and much larger making them easier to carve. In the U S the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general  long before it became an emblem of Halloween.  In recent years pumpkins have become more readily available in the UK and have replaced turnips and swedes for making lanterns.

I'm late posting my blip as my brother phoned and we spent a couple of hours catching up.  He isn't good at keeping in contact so it was great to hear from him.  He's doing Ok.  I mentioned that I would be in his neck of the woods tomorrow as I will be popping in to see Neil at work - and Neil now works quite near to where my brother lives. So he suggested we meet up.  I need to contact him tomorrow to let him know the approximate time I will be in the area and he is going to wait on a bench in the street till I get there.  I'm not holding my breath that the meeting will happen as its many years since I have seen him - something always seems to come up at his end to prevent a meeting. I will report back tomorrow.

Steps today - 7,869