Post Box Toppers - Mail box topper Halloween pumpkin

 

Post box in north west London. Yarn topper. Pumpkin. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. 

This post box  was in Long Elmes by the H14 bus stop to Harrow. September 27th 2025.

Post box toppers have been around since 2012. 

I have several more pictures of toppers on this post box and others in London. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Pumpkin Patch Farm in London - Plus Ice Cream and cut and cook your own pumpkin pie

 

Photo from Sharot family.

Great fun for adults and children at the Pumpkin Patch farm and ice cream shop in Barnet, North London.

Mock graves.

They have pumpkins in wheelbarrows, mock graves with legs sticking out, mock skeletons playing guitars.

And funny little orange hats for children and adults.

Their website lists their regular ice cream flavours which include bubblegum, lemon meringue, rum and raisin, What - no pumpkin flavour?

Lewis of London, Fold Farm, Galley Lane, London. EN5 4RA.

It is in Barnet, North West London.

If you cannot get there, or it is too heavy to carry home, Tesco supermarket delivers pumpkins

Pumpkin Products and food

What can you do with a pumpkin? Cut it out for a lantern.

Use the flesh to make drinks and foods. Pumpkin smoothie. Pumpkin soup. Pumpkin pancakes - alliterative! Pumpkin donut. Pumpkin pie - alliterative! Rice or soup can be served inside a pumpkin which is cut to form a bowl with a lift off lid.

Vegetarian options from the BBC include pumpkin risotto, pumpkin and potato, pumpkin with lentils, pumpkin biriani.

Pumpkin pie with ice cream from Wikipedia. 

The Halloween effects at the farm in Barnet are available the last two weeks of October until Hallowe'en (with the original apostrophe for evening) at the end of the month. However, you can enjoy the ice creams all year. See their website for updates.

Toastmasters clubs worldwide will be celebrating Halloween as their theme for this weekend, in 2022, Oct 21 (Friday) to Oct 23 Sunday, as well as Diwali (also called Deepawali); and Friday Oct 28th, Sat 29th, Sunday 30th and Monday 31st.. Whether or not you are a member of a toastmasters club, you are welcome at most of the public clubs.

Finally, to make a pumpkin hat, use a round orange bathing cap. If you do not want to spoil it by drawing on it or cutting it or sewing on byes and so on, stick or pin on a pumpkin face.

Useful Websites

https://www.lewisoflondon.co.uk/events/pumpkin-patch/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin_pie

https://www.wikihow.com/Carve-a-Pumpkin

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/302470977

See my next post about the ghouls.

Halloween Club decorations, dress code and prizes

Inside the large plastic pumpkin were a selection of chocolates and small biscuits.

Another meeting I attended asked the members and guests to wear black or orange or Halloween outfits. A prize was offered for the best outfit.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Our Halloween Evening At Harrovian Speakers Club In London, England

Problem

What to do for Halloween

A pumpkin was by the front door when we arrived at Harrovian Speakers, a club which is part of Toastmasters International.

The lit pumpkin cast an eerie, flickering glow over the entrance, next to the cemetery behind St Lawrence's church. (For future meetings see the Harrovians website or Meetup.)

Inside on each chair we found a cut out of a ghost, a mouse, or a spider.

Our President, Sushil, had brought Maltesers for those who volunteered to do table topics (subjects for impromptu speech, sometimes taken from (a box on) the table, as happened tonight.

Past and future member Kamesh picks a topic from the table.

A guest enthuses about the picture which reminds her of a souvenir of her trip to Africa.

Giles, the husband of speaker Rachel, told us about Roman speaker Cicero.

I feel somebody is watching me. Amparo, who brought the pumpkin. Yes, it's a real pumpkin which she carved.

The pumpkin, watching the meeting.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts in www.travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk 

How To Organise a Halloween Celebration And Cut A Pumpkin

 Last Year's Halloween - Pumpkins for the house of garden, in the home or garden section of a supermarket such as Waitrose.

Clothes and accessories under £2.

Biscuits and cakes under £2.

This year's Halloween
My Tesco Trident, £2 or less.

Plastic trident from Tesco Express

Problem
How do I buy and cut a pumpkin to make a display? What do I need?

Answer
You have a choice. Buy a fresh pumpkin and enjoy eating it as well as having a display. Or buy a plastic pumpkin, ready-made, and store it for next year.

Where to buy? In the UK I saw fresh pumpkins in Waitrose, synthetic 'toy' pumpkins in Tesco Express.

You can buy a pumpkin cutting kit with instructions.

Cutting A Pumpkin
My friend says:
Slice the top off the pumpkin horizontally.

Scoop out the inside.

Draw the face on a sheet of paper. Either draw it yourself or copy from a picture on the internet or from the packaging with your pumpkin. Decide whether to use circles or triangles, small or large, what distance apart. Trace or copy onto the outside of the pumpkin with pencil, so you can work out the spacing and decide what looks best.
Cut three triangles, two for the eyes

Use it to eat fresh, make a pumpkin drink or heat it up as a soup. Recipes all over the internet. You can also make a pumpkin tart.

Set up outdoors by the gate or doorway, on the ground or perhaps on a small table to welcome guests.  This can be done at a home or public meeting. (We did it at a Toastmasters International Speakers' Club in London, at a church hall beside a cemetery!

Place a tea light inside. After everybody has arrived and the meeting is about to start, extinguish the light for safety when moving. Carry the pumpkin indoors. Set it up and re-light the candle.

If you are really crafty in the kitchen, bake a Halloween cake. Orange icing. A black witches' hat on top.  If not, go to an organized event.

Bake a cake. Instructions on craft site.

Story - Memories of Pumpkin Dinner
I had a delicious pumpkin meal at the American Club in Singapore. I was a member of the American Women's Association. We had pumpkin soup as a starter, a main course with pumpkin mixed in with the salad, and a choice of a pumpkin 'pudding', meaning a kind of mousse, or pumpkin tart.

To complete the look: orange paper napkins and an orange centrepiece.

Offer leftover fresh pumpkin display to somebody who has children. Save a plastic pumpkin for next year in your basement or attic. Note where it is stored by sending yourself a picture in an email in the storage place in your laptop or phone or computer. Copy details of where to find it into your online diary for a week before next year's Halloween. Send duplicate to spouse or other family member, or to shared calendar, so they don't waste money by duplicating purchases. You are also set for your next event.

If you missed having a Halloween party this year, prices come down in supermarkets the day or week afterwards. You can stock up with paperwear for next year.

What can you buy?
Paper cups.
A plastic tablecloth.
Plastic pumpkins.
Orange decorations and clothes.
Face paints. Masks. Fingernails.
Note any Halloween stories to tell.

Halloween Tablecloth

Lessons Learned
The organizers of our party were brilliant. The Toastmaster of the evening wore an outfit. One person brought cakes. Another brought decorations. What else could we have done? Phoned each member personally the weekend before and on the day and asked them to wear either fancy dress or black and white and orange.

Food and Fruit
The halloween cakes looked great.

Our cakes and biscuits were an overdose of sugar. We could have brought orange fruit as an alternative for those on health food diets. That's easy. Oranges, ideally slices or in segments. Oranges. Satsumas. Mandarins. Apricots.

White hard boiled eggs on orange plates, or white plates with orange napkins alongside or under the plates.

Peanuts or black fruits such as black grapes or raisins in white bowls on orange paper napkins.

Invitations
Halloween invitations asking guests to wear outfits or white tee-shirts or orange ties and jewellery.

Useful Websites
Morrisons www.morrisons.co.uk
Tesco www.tesco.com
Waitrose www.waitrose.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Halloween Cutout For Photos

Halloween cut out for photos at Morrisons. I tried reversing the picture to take a selfie but that didn't work. So I had to trust a passer-by with my camera to take my picture.

You could make one like this at home for a halloween party. Or take a picture of yourself at Morrison and print it large in colour as a poster for your party.

Morrisons supermarket is also selling large orange pumpkins.

Waitrose has pumpkins and outfits.
Tesco offers you more Halloween items.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Pumpkins in Morrisons for Halloween

Pumpkins in Morrisons for Halloween. Everything in orange. You can get paper plates and serviettes and paper cups to match.

I love pumpkin pie. In America we would drive through the countryside and see signs everywhere offering pumpkins for sale at restaurants and supermarkets and farms.

In Singapore we used to enjoy pumpkin soup starters, and pumpkin pie dessert for lunch when members of the American Women's Association which met in the American Club for a seasonal lunch.

In Morrisons and other supermarkets you can buy costumes, hats and more.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Halloween in Hatch End, Pumpkins and spooks at Balla's Blooms

Bella's Blooms organized horse and carriage rides.

This was one of her displays.

bellasblooms.co.uk

Angela Lansbury travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.

Pumpkins and Hallowe-en

Halloween was a big festival in America long before it reached here. I recall driving along the suburban streets and motorways and seeing huge piles of orange pumpkins in pram ids by the roadsides, banners over the supermarkets, and houses with displays of spiders webs like a spooky version of Xmas in a ghost town.

Now every supermarket in Britain has a display inside near the door and often beside the potted plants and garden displays by the main entrance on the pavement. (To you readers in the US in the UK we say pavement for what you would call sidewalk, whilst our roadway or paved road is what you would call pavement).


Some people get a free live deadly spider in their bananas from the supermarket. Other customers have to make do with an imitation spider and pay for it.

I've checked out the offerings online at ebay and Waitrose and Tesco. You can buy three large spiders for about £3 from Waitrose and Tesco. Also look in Poundland. A spider or spiders web is was what I needed for my Toastmasters talk on Bruce and the spider. I shall buy when the prices fall after Hallowe-en, hoping the supermarkets have some leftovers.