Deirdre's (a very good friend of ours) pumpkin was the envy of the whole department. I even know of people who came from other departments to steal glances at her pumpkin. This pumpkin also had the courtesy to grow towards the road so that everyone could admire it's beauty – and there was a lot to be admired. A local police officer was worried about somebody stealing it, but we weren't. A drive-by-pumpkin-stealer was going to have to be a very big lad to lift this 150kg beauty.

Deirdre had to return to England, so she called a Pumpkin Meeting. Could we eat ALL that pumpkin? Did we know enough people who would be able to eat ALL that pumpkin? Could we even lift ALL that pumpkin into the car? Turns out we could answer all three with YES so we set to work on ALL that pumpkin. Well, we let Joerg get to work and he was able to get it into the car, but even he had trouble and he's a drive-by-pumpkin-stealer size of a lad.

I'd felt very confident when we fetched it, but once it was home and sitting waiting to be chopped, it did slightly intimidate me. Finally I decided to cut into it's voluptuous flesh and took a slice or two into kitchen. 15Lt of Pumpkin Soup later and we hadn't even touched the circumference of this not-so-baby baby. For weeks there wasn't a meal that didn't entail pumpkin and our friends stopped seeing us for fear of getting yet another slice of the pumpkin pie. But just yesterday I bottled the last jar of Pumpkin Chutney – the beast has been cooked!

I need another bottle of chutney like I need another 150kg pumpkin as I probably already have 150 bottles of homemade chutney. Another so-called friend, Vanessa, gave us about 300kg of tomatoes this summer – does one classify someone who gives 300kg of tomatoes a friend or a crazy foe?? Personally, we still consider her a super friend and are very grateful for the bountiful harvest. There were moments at about midnight as I bottled the never ending red devils that I had my doubts, but she gets a big red kiss from us now as I eat the (red) fruits of my labour. You'll hear more about Vanessa and The Trillion Tomatoes another time – I mentioned it now as I have at least 50 bottles of Tomato Chutney too...

But enough already. The next post is going to be for Thai Red Curry Pumpkin Soup – I'll do a plain Pumpkin Soup another time. So watch this space and be happy!