Remember last year, when I said I fancied doing The Evolution of Van for my pumpkins this year?

Next time I have an idea like that, tell me no. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you may have noticed a tiny bit of whinging at my own idiocy that led to me have seven pumpkins to carve.

Unusually for me (not) I decided to leave carving to the last minute, although I had been organised enough to draw out my designs on them a few days earlier:

Halloween came, and I decided that I’d best get carving. I put the pumpkins on the floor whilst I wrapped my dining room table in polythene sheeting (you can take the teacher out of the classroom…) and Teddington Bear decided to help by chewing on their stalks…

I decided to start off with the splitty, as so many of my friends have suggested that I carve a split over the past couple of years. After a few minutes, my helper had conked out, and I’d found out just how sharp my knife was!

It was soon completed, but I decided that attempting to do a barndoor Samba was a daft idea, as all the windows had affected the structural integrity of the pumpkin and it was very wobbly.

As was proved the following day, when the weight of the roof had just got too much for the spindly window frames:

I’ll be honest, the fiddly and time-consuming nature of the splitty got me down, but with Rooobarb on the scene to help with scooping out, I moved onto the No Worries badge. I was really pleased with how it turned out!

The last part of the project was the Evolution of Van, that I had decided on last year.

I tried to recreate the line up of the original VW ad,

but I think it might have looked more effective with 3D style drawings like the slammed Beetle pumpkin of last year. Now to start planning for next year!