Laura's Rebel Journey

  The chickens weren't keen on pumpkin, unfortunately.  So this pumpkin was a bit of a fail! So we went in a different direction and decided to get them to carve something they enjoy eating. Chickens carving a watermelon!  They loved this.

 Carve a Pumpkin. Hmm.  Very brief instructions there.  I had planned that this year I wouldn't carve a pumpkin, instead I would do one of those non-carving decorations and follow up with use your pumpkin scraps in a recipe .  But then I went on Instagram and found an even better way to carve a pumpkin. Get your hens to do it! The instructions don't say that I have to carve the pumpkin with regular carving tools. 😉 You have to start the pumpkin off for them as they find the skin too tough, so a brief paring of the skin and it's into the chicken run. Go on ladies, snack away! This may take a few days and it will need a good clean afterwards.

  Do some Halloween related baking.   I made 30 of these for the Halloween Disco and forgot to take a photo of them.  However, having to redo the bake to take a photo, I realised that this also counts as a batch bake of 12 identical items for the Baker badge. They're not completely identical, but for me it's quite impressive.  Besides, I always bake with my daughter and I'd rather she enjoyed the process than taking over from her and being obsessive about the accuracy.

 Here's the thing.  Our house has reflected light on the window all day .  It starts with the sunrise, and even after the sun has moved, there are no houses opposite to block the light.  Then the night time arrives, and we are flooded by street light.  I can never take photos of our window at Halloween or at Christmas.  I have decorated the window as I do every year because Halloween is awesome and rocks so much harder than Christmas. Then, when it comes to posting online, it's really hard to get the street name out of the picture as it reflects no matter where you stand. 💀 Instead of our house, I give you a house on the nearby street.  They are American and they know how to do this properly.

This is "Read a Gothic Novel and review it" .  I didn't think was a clause I'd complete, but I ended up in Waterstones on the first day of our holiday and decided to buy Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia purely to tick off this clause.  💀There will now be Spoilers.💀 It was a really quick read, which was unexpected.  I don't read that much horror, I went through a phase of reading all of Anne Rice's books, but I doubt I'd have picked this up without the Rebel Badge Club encouraging me to read a gothic novel.  I enjoyed the spooky premise of a house that won't let you leave, but I wasn't as creeped out as some people who have reviewed it on Goodreads.  The heroine, Noemi, was also a character that I was happy to support, a badly drawn main character juts ruins a good book. The worst part of it for me wasn't where Noemi's dreams were being taken over by the house, but the very human support for eugenics by the patriarch of the family....

 Use Autumn leaves for a beautiful photo or craft. Oh, how badly this one went wrong! I saw some lovely autumn leaves on holiday, and was particularly drawn to the ones that had fallen in the rain and were being reflected so beautifully in the puddles between the cobbles.  I took loads of pictures of them, and with my daughter walking through them. My phone's camera, however, failed to capture what I was seeing. I didn't even manage to include the rather lovely bench either, so this is the best of a really bad bunch. Not to worry, I thought, I plan to visit the Botanical Garden and that's bound to have some lovely autumn leaves. No. It decided to pour with rain instead, so that didn't work out either.  I am claiming this one because I tried my best, even if it wasn't successful.

 The eighth choice on the Halloween Challenge is " Take a group of children trick or treating, or host a Halloween party ".  Now, I was going to wait until the 31st to claim this clause after I'd taken my daughter and her friends out to go begging candy from strangers, but then I realised what I'd just done - organised the school's Halloween Disco!  If organising three discos for over 320 children doesn't count as " Host a Halloween Party " I don't know what does. 👻💀  Everyone loves the Halloween Disco and this was the first one we've had since 2019.  Each session sold out in a week and there were some rather annoyed parents who weren't quick enough to buy tickets and ended up getting grief from their parents.  The lucky children had a fabulous time.  Foam, cakes, candy, and even some glowsticks.  That won't happen again, I don't agree with single use plastics!