How an afternoon of pumpkin picking taught me a valuable lesson I should have already learned.
This weekend we’d booked into a pumpkin-picking event for the kids at a local farm. Sounded great on the surface. £2 a child, not too far, and they were all VERY excited. But when I looked at the small print, my tiny brain was once again working overtime going over and over the doomsday scenario…
How much are the actual pumpkins? It took me a long while to research this well-hidden info. 2021 prices went up to £7 each, which is extortionate. £21 at least then, before we’ve even started.
Why are they hiding the price of the pumpkins? If they’re so embarrassed to publish such high prices. What else are they hiding?
How many pumpkins are we thinking about buying? I’d already resigned myself to the fact that one each was never going to be enough. That £21 seemed very optimistic.
How much was the day out actually going to cost? I really didn’t want to blow £100, on payday, for fuel, food, and pumpkins, this close to the Christmas carnage.
How many times am I going to be ripped off? I know we’re all supposed to be in a cost-of-living crisis. I know farmers are supposed to have it tough. But I really didn’t want today to be a day of lining their pockets on expensive kid’s rides and the usual farm-house souvenir shop/cafe racket. I made a beeline for google reviews, sorted in worst review order of course. I fed my bias some more.
But do you know what? After the event, I feel so silly and so wrong. In reality, none of the above came to pass.
For a kick-off, we paid just over a tenner for the pumpkins, of which there were many, but more than just the money, we all had a brilliant time, with me and my pink wheelbarrow, gathering up a variety of pumpkins of all shapes, sizes, and colours. A million times better than picking up three identical ones from Aldi.
For the first time in our lives, in my own life, we’d made an occasion of it. We were all out in the countryside, with other families, having fun, which is priceless, and the pumpkins we gathered looked brilliant.
Afterward, as we approached the fairground. I discovered some loose change in my pocket. I hardly ever deal with cash these days, but this was the change I annoyingly needed to pump air into the car tyres a few days ago. This was very handily used to purchase unlimited time in the funhouse for all of them, which again, surpassed expectorations and then some.
After that, hook a duck? for £4.50?! Not a chance. We avoided it.
And then onto the notorious farm-shop. The final hurdle, and yet again, not even a fraction as bad as I’d feared, with actually a few decent Christmas stocking-filler ideas on display as well as a decent ‘Home’ section that Mrs. H loved.
So far, all good, with the icing on the cake of a nice photo of them on a tractor with a pumpkin scarecrow man.
As we were in need of coffee, I began queuing for the usually overpriced kiosk. But hey, Starbucks is just down the road. Nicer, cheaper, and the easiest decision of the day.
On-route to the next adventure, not a single one of my predictions had come to pass, but much more than that, we were all smiling with our hearts full of new memories, chatting about the fun we’d just all had.
The point I’m trying to make?
Ultimately, it’s within us to control our own reality. I always tend to think the worst, and I think that’s because a lot of the time, things turned out badly. It’s once bitten twice shy,
But that’s not reality. It’s never that bad. Although it’s never all that good either, the farm shop was still probably a rip-off and the fairground and food were expensive, but we didn’t play that game and got the best parts out of the day.
Reality is somewhere in the middle.
Most of all. Being overly pessimistic about the event before it happened was a complete waste of energy and didn’t achieve anything.
I’ll rephrase that (slightly).
Being overly pessimistic about an event before it happens is a complete was of energy and doesn’t achieve anything.
Thanks for reading, and Happy Halloween from all of us!
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