BBQs and early Halloween

We were very lucky with the weather over Labour Weekend, with three nice sunny days over the long weekend.  We had a rally at Carterton Holiday Park with our friends from the Caravan Club, and this camp would have to be one of our favourites.  It has a generous sized dining/TV  room that we can use in the evening for our get togethers.  Carterton was established in 1857 and was originally known as “Three Mile Bush”.  The town was named after Charles Rooking Carter.

The weather man had promised rough weather but luckily that did not happen.  So we cooked our first BBQ of the season.  In the end we cooked two, just had to have another BBQ the following evening as the weather was just glorious.   Cooking barbeques is very much a “man” thing, and they were busy turning their sausages, chops, steak kebabs, potatoes, mushrooms and onions.   The ladies of course were busy preparing the vegetables and salads to go with all these barbeque delights.  It was warm enough to allow us to eat our meals outside in the early evening air. 

 

 

We met up in the dining room on Sunday evening and were each given an orange and a candle.  Our task was to turn this into a Halloween head using whatever other bits and pieces we could gather, if required.  Most of us performed the task we were given, hollowing out the orange and cutting a grinning face for the candle light to shine through.  I had forgotten to cut a whole in the very top to allow the smoke to escape, and the smell of my burning orange filled the air.  I had also added some flowering sprigs as hair since I decided that my orange was a girl – the base of these twigs were also smouldering in the candle flame!

 

My girlie orange with flowers in her hair and a scarf, and Robin’s orange with it’s maniacal grin

However, as to be expected a few thought “outside the square”.  and came up with something completely different.  Eileen’s orange had a touch of Carmen Miranda with her big blue eyes, earrings and  a  magnolia blossom perched on her head.  Geoff came up with a still life fruit arrangement.  No cutting and no candles from these two.

Graeme made a helicopter from his orange, hung it from a balloon, lit the candle, and “bang”, the balloon exploded and the helicopter then fell to the floor.  All this happened in an instant so we were unable to get a photo of the completed contraption with the candle aflame.  This was all a lot of fun and it was certainly interesting to see the ideas that everyone came up with.

  There’s a helicopter in here somewhere