Hope squashed but no cauli wobbles

I've been out harvesting my potatoes this week wearing only a hat. Seven sackfuls, sweaty stuff! Best weather of the year here, but it's come too late to save my pumpkins. I had one sizable specimen but it has taken to impersonating a squash. When I poked it the other day, it dented like my new football after a huge black labrador attacked it on the local rec when I was 10. Inside turned out to be a gooey mass. The plant was still healthy; I think the fruit must have just shivered to death for absence of sunshine to ripen it. It's a tricky business growing pumpkins this far north. Last year, you'll remember my infeasibly bountiful wheelbarrow, but many of them had been softened by an early frost at the end of September, and they didnt keep too well. One can only learn from such setbacks.
My brassicae offer a good case study. Last year, I lost half the crop to root fly. Answer: grow more and prepare for repalcements. Strangely no root fly this year, so my nursery bed is still heaving leaves. Then the survivors were decimated by caterpillars. Answer: inspect your nether regions and squash any yellow growths. The neeps were then eaten by mice and/or deer in the November snow. Answer: err... no snow? And to cap it all, the supposedly hard cavolo nero and sprouting broccoli didn't survive the December ice age - leaving me with only the trusty curly kale for the dark months. Answer: I'll be ready with the polytunnel. This year, my patch has made it through to the season of mellow fruitfulness in very good heart. Only one thorny issue to deal with now: how to tell my dear pumpkin she's in for a season of clapshot and rumbledethump suppers.