Halloween, baking and dachsie crochet

Well the halloween or October half term holiday is over and the girls had a lot of rest and some recreation also, including for the first time ever: PUMPKIN CARVING!!!
I was rather impressed with Miss A 's first efforts which looked so very effective when lit with a candle as above.
We had out first open fire in the new fireplace and did a lot of cooking and baking.

 I hurriedly made a chocolate birthday cake for one of the OUSDS dancers on the Tuesday before we spent the day at the QA in Portsmouth .because mum had broken her wrist and was there.
 It was my cake day so I made marble loaves too for the dance class on the Tuesday.
Miss A made a wonderful red VELVET cake as per Hummingbird cookbook but with a slightly different recipe, woweee it was divinely delicious!

A deep glowing redness prevails, a sublime moist texture and a wild chocolatey taste, even without any icing whatsoever.

 We had an amazing lasagna on the Monday and Miss E baked a chocolate cake with peppermint candy cane icing on the Wednesday but the cake was too fresh so the icing mixed with the cake to become a choc cake crumb/icing mix and although delicious it was not exactly photogenic, besides it was eaten faster than I could photograph it! Also on the Monday I made a pile of breadpudding sticks from a waitrose recipe, adorned with many raisins and sultanas and many X-massy spices but it didn;t last long! JJ has the pics on his i-phone so they'll come along at  a later date.
Then the CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS were made yet again, as per tradition from the 7 year old waitrose recipe and steamed for 4 and 2.5 hours respectively. It took a longer time than usual not least because JJ had broken the larger pudding dish- crockery- and hadn't told anyone so I spent hours and hours searching for it! This year's in a metal one now. And we'll try to remember to EAT the smaller New Year's Eve one because I had to throw last year's out, 2-3 inches of green mould had devoured the top, a veritable penicillin factory.
Then the finale to all this baking was a Nigelissima Amaretti Plum crumble which we had last night!
It got 9 to 10 out of 10 so do google it , it's free on BBC recipes!!! Easy, quick and delicious.

This all took place while my poor thumb was trying to recover: I had hurt it in my car door on the Friday before the Oxfordshire RSCDS Annual Ball at Headington School.

Too busy thinking about all the things going on and that I still had to do so my left hand slammed the car door while my RIGHT hand was pulling a briefcase out of the car. And YES I'm right- handed. SOOO stupid.
Luckily it wasn't broken or anything and I did it at 5pm on Friday so I could phone JJ to come pick me up, after I had fainted and lain on the office floor for a while- felt very dizzy and nauseous. Shock.
Onto hapier things: the latest crochet now NORO is finished and much worn and admired already and am still deciding what kind of garment project is next.

Here's a hello and goodbye from Buttercup the dachshund made from a RICO design pattern in a Knitting magazine. I made her with Anchor magicline.
She has cocktail sticks in her front legs and fuzzy wire in her tail and hindlegs to help her stand up.
She still finds standing difficult as you can see.