Neep Lantern

We were talking about Halloween in my Parliamentary office on Thursday and my young Californian intern, Byron had (naturally enough) never heard of a neep lantern.  

That is probably true of most Scottish children now too as boxes of pumpkins have been on  sale everywhere in the last few weeks    although I remember  seeing my first actual pumpkin lantern (as opposed to a picture of one) when I was in St Louis at Halloween in 1988.   

Similarly "trick or treat" has almost entirely replaced what we would have called guising, at which there had to be a performance of some sort to get any reward. 

Heather , my Parliamentary Assistant, thought it would be a good idea for me to make a neep lantern for my blip today so that Byron  could see it, but I don't think she expected me to do it. 

However I found a wee  turnip in the supermarket in Dunoon last night and , here it is, carved out this morning and lit up  as the light fades.   

Maybe soon there will be some young guisers at the door or even - if there was a group from over the water in Greenock - an offering of that even older Halloween tradition, galoshans.