Our Samhain and Halloween 2022

As I've mentioned in previous posts, this year our Halloween/Samhain/Anniversary looked a little bit different!This was the first time since 2019, the year we got married, that we spent the 31st of October away from home. And it was weird. Don't get me wrong, it was a much needed, well appreciated and a wonderful time...it was just so strange spending the most important day of the year away from home.

This is just a quick round up of what we actually did this Halloween, with plenty of photos. There will be many more posts to follow of our accomadtion, adventures and a dedicated post of our 2022 decorations.

Of course for us Halloween is more than a one day celebration, though for some reason this October didn't feel as October-y as Octobers normally feel. It was a busy month, I was on shift for my bereavment support role the week ending on the 30th and Mr H was at work a lot so of the things we'd usually do during the month didn't really happen. Decor went up later than usual and traditional movies didn't get watched. So to counteract that we extended into November!

Have a peek below to see how our non-tradtional tradtional Halloween and Samhain went...

Above shows the 31st of October 2022. Our 3rd wedding anniversary, 4th of being together and the day we travelled to our accomadation.
On the way to our final destination we took the opportunity to stop by the famous Kelpies for a visit, before heading on to the Wallace Monument woodland trail and finally home for the next 2 nights...Bag End. Again, there will be individual posts on all of these places so I won't say too much now.
By the time we got the fire lit and settled into our little Burrow the sun was already setting so it was time to prepare our Samhain meal. Although we had similar foods to our usual Samhain meal (we cooked a lot at home in the morning and was able to reheat it using the hob there), it was different this year as we were unable to set a place for those departed nor did not have my little alter of photos of our lost loved ones - I hope they knew that no matter where we are, no matter the day of the year we are always thinking of them and welcome their presence always. 
To end the evening we carved our Jack O Lanterns from the pumpkins that provided the main ingredient for the soup we ate.

Waking up somewhere so magical and so perfect for us was surreal. With a skylight above the bed, light rain in the early hours woke us up after a slight lay-in at around 7am. We had originally planned to head over to Loch Lomond though we ended up deciding to have a slower mini-break, staying closer to the accomadation meaning we had more time to really enjoy being there. 
I had found some cool ruins online in a woodland walk near Stirling University that had a view of Wallace Monment from them so we headed there, parked up and headed out on what ended up a 5 mile hike. The original ruins alluded us, desptie looping around and climing up steep leaf covered hills but we did have a wonderful walk seeing many auntumn sights as well as Logie Kirk and the Old Logie Kirk 'ruins' and cemetary. 
Back at Bag End I took some time to get lots of photos while it was still light, including our Novemeber portraits. We had vegan burgers and potatoes for tea and tried to play a board game...try being the principal word as it wasn't the most user friendly starting out!

We left Bag End with heavy hearts on the 2nd and headed home happily to our babies! My parents had come to look after them, which we are so greatful for because if it weren't for them we'd never leave home at all. I don't trust any one else looking after the zoo!
We had a normal evening on the 2nd but once my parents had gone home on the 3rd we had a traditional Hallow Halloween! Complete with pizza, crisps, sweets, cocktails and movies. (I think we were going to do it all over again in December too haha!).

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And that was our Samhain, Halloween and Anniversary celebrations! I look forward to sharing lots more photos over the coming months and would love to hear how you spent the magical month of October!

Until next time...