The weather is getting colder, bitter winds rattle the windows and the nights are dark — yes Halloween is approaching. Throughout the world this festival, which is thought to date back to pagan times, is celebrated on October 31. It’s seen as the night on which ghosts, witches, goblins and fairies are particularly active due to the barriers between our world and the spirit world being at their weakest.

This is the night on which spirits are most likely to be encountered.

Well regardless of what you believe, Halloween is a great excuse to organise a party that encourages us all to dress up and make the most of seasonal food such as pumpkins, squash and apples. At this time of the year most supermarkets are selling giant orange pumpkins for as little as £1 which are great if you want to carve them.

For really unusual shapes, however, which are somewhat smaller, but incredibly attractive, farm shops and pick your owns such as Peach Croft Farm, Radley, and Millets Farm Centre go out of their way to produce a fine assortment of quite remarkable shapes and sizes. Millets dictates the mood by transforming their maize maze into a spooky world full of cobwebs and witches from October 26 to November 2.

For those living in the Pangbourne area, a Squash and Pumpkin Festival, which is a community event hosted by Tolhurst Organic, will be taking place on the Hardwick Estate today from 11am to 5pm. Organic grower Ian Tolhurst says that the festival will celebrate the splendour of the season with an exhibition of large pumpkins and beautiful squash. This is an interactive event, where visitors will make things happen by entering the carved and biggest pumpkin and best in show squash competitions and rolling pumpkins up and down the farm grounds.

For the eighth year running the legendary Hobgoblin, brewed at Wychwood Brewery, Witney, will be taking its place as the “Unofficial Beer of Halloween” and unleashing its season of mischief on us all. Hobgoblin is a full-bodied ruby beer that delivers a delicious chocolate toffee malt flavour, balanced with rounded moderate bitterness and an overall fruity, mischievous character. In other words, it tastes great, the perfect drink now that the winter’s chill has arrived. The combination of both its gutsy flavour and imaginative art-work certainly places it as the quintessential Halloween drink.

Wychwood marketing manager, Chris Keating says that during the past eight years the brewery has created a demand for the beer over the Season of Mischief. Consumers expect to see the Hobgoblin creating havoc throughout October. He reminds us all that Hobgoblin will be served at the annual lighting of the pumpkins at the brewery on October 31. This event which takes place from 6pm to 9pm is one of the highlights of the brewery’s year as it not only attracts families from Witney, but West Oxfordshire and beyond. Children are encouraged to bring their own carved pumpkin which can be entered in the main competition of the evening. There will be a pig roast in the brewery yard, a spooky disco and loads of Halloween mayhem. It goes without saying that Hobgoblin will be on tap for the adults.

Limited edition “Season of Mischief” promotional bottles of Hobgoblin hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago and are already selling out in some stores. The best place to purchase your Hobgoblin is probably the brewery shop, Eagle Maltings, The Crofts, Witney, where a fine selection of Hobgoblin merchandise is also available. If you don’t know where that is, just stand in the centre of Witney, close to the Buttercross, sniff the air then follow your nose and the smell of malt.

If you have wondered about the origin of “Trick or Treat” think cakes, soul cakes to be precise. The old English custom of “soul-caking” or “souling” originated in pre-Reformation days. On All Saints and All Souls days (November 1 and 2), singers would go from house to house begging for cakes in remembrance of the dead. What they would be given were small round cake-like biscuits spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg.

Recipes vary considerably but most soul cakes are rich in milk, spices and eggs. Traditionally, each cake eaten would represent a soul being freed from Purgatory. Apparently, even stranger’s prayers can help souls travelling to heaven.

There are so many recipes that can be created from pumpkins at this time of the year, all of which add something special to your Halloween party and at very little cost. Try pumpkin soup, of which you can make gallons if you use the flesh left over after carving your pumpkin. It can be cooked and added to a standard bread recipe too, chopped and added to stews and casseroles mixed with mashed potatoes and served as a tasty vegetable, or roasted and served with a juicy beef steak and a glass or two of Hobgoblin.