Thursday, 24 October, 2019
This year was the tenth annual Dalston Pumpkin Lantern Festival at the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden.
I’m pretty sure I went to the first one ever . Somewhere I have the photos to prove it. I do remember, whenever that first one was, that there was a bunch of lovely pumpkins that were lit up at night and they had been carved during a two-day period by children. Fast forward ten years to this festival.
The garden had a stockpile of over a thousand pumpkins and invited people to come to carve them during one crazy weekend. I asked my mentee if she’d like to come carve one with me last Saturday. At the bus stop to go up to the Curve Garden the buses were going to be uncharacteristicaly late. There was an 8-minute wait for buses that usually come a few minutes apart. So I was going to be late. I sent a Whatsapp Message to say so and back came the response.
I didn’t know what that meant but I did know there were over a thousand pumpkins to carve so I formed a mental picture of that. By the time I finally arrived at the entrance to the garden I already knew my mental picture fell a bit short.
When I got inside I could see that the carving tables were already full of busy carvers. The place to get the pumpkins was at the far end of the garden and there may have been 50 people in the queue. I cant believe I found HG somewhere in there but we quickly decided that one pumpkin, at £3 a pop, was the way to go.
We found a table and took turns holding the baby, who was decked out in a pumpkin theme, drawing lots of attention. I had the job of hollowing out the pumpkin while HG would carve. Baby duty prevailed. We talked about the rise of Halloween events in the UK and how much we missed candy corn, and the pumpkin was done. We added it to the growing stash on the stage and went to get a table and a hot drink.
With so many pumpkins, the Garden was asking for volunteers to come help light them up every night at 5pm in preparation for the public arriving at 6 every night until the 27th. There are more pumpkins coming too – a half term school event and an adults only event. Unbelievably, the number would grow.
And that’s how it’s gone.
Yesterday I realised that my only chance to see the pumpkins glowing in the garden at night was tonight. I threw on my coat and went off to the bus stop. Thinking back to that first ever Pumpkin event I had no idea what to expect.
Arriving at Dalston Junction I saw that people were coming out of the station, down from the high street from Dalston Kingsland Station, and streaming out of the buses. It was surely going to be crazy. And it was.
However busy it had been on the weekend, it was now busier. There were pumpkins everywhere – along the paths, grouped on shelves, on tables, on flower beds, in the garden shed and on the stage at the back.
Everywhere were orange orbs lit up to display the huge variety of people’s imaginative carvings. Not all faces. There were words, patterns, robots, cats, and on and on. If I thought I could find our pumpkin among the hundreds, I was wrong. Even with my crazy psychic powers, it was impossible.
My photos were taken hastily as I noticed people briefly clearing a space. I stayed about 20 minutes. I’d thought I’d splurge and have a mulled wine or hot toddy but the cafe too had a huge line so home I went.
I have one little pumpkin to carve here and a few Halloween decorations, including my famous Kleenex ghosts! No kids come to the door, which saves me from buying treats – well almost, since when the holiday is done and the bags are marked down, who can resist a big pack of funsize Mars bars? Not I!