‘I’d left it too late to buy a pumpkin and the supermarket had sold out. I’d heard people talk about carving turnips and there were still plenty of them for sale, so I picked up a bag and headed home. I was surprised at how fiddly I found it ... it turns out that in spite of regular Sunday lunches featuring one or both, I didn’t know the difference between a turnip and a parsnip. How my wife laughed!’ says 45-year-old Makka from south Oxfordshire.