Seven Days

Joining in with Jacqui's lovely idea about looking at the extraordinary ordinary from the last seven days.

Beginning to use up the apples from the allotment (thyme and apple jelly, and apple chutney)

 Helping make some banana and chocolate chip muffins (well, what else do you do with those really mushy bananas?

 Making playdough.

 The boys discovering toys that have been sat on the shelf for far too long.

 Home improvements restarting

 The best picture (how I wish for a fantastic zoom lens!) of the thing that makes me smile every morning.  I hear the parakeet every morning, and it graced us with its presence in the garden the other morning.

 New looks for the younger boys.

Thank you Jacqui for making me look at our week with fresh eyes.

Catch up!

 What a busy week!  Sunday, Luke and I took three bags of apples to an apple pressing day at a local craft centre.  2 bags of cooking apples from the tree at the allotment, and a bag of "eaters" we had accumulated from various places, oh, and a small bag of pears.  When I was washing them all, and putting them all into bags, I thought we had quite a lot!  But when we got there it was a meagre amount compared to what most people had brought!!  The apples and pears were tipped into an electric hopper which chopped them up finely, then put into a hessian sack and pressed in the green and wooden press at the back of the first picture.  We then had to decant our juice into bottles.

 We had collected plastic milk bottles to store the juice, as it could be frozen that way.  the juice oxidises very quickly, as can be seen by the colour of it in the bottles already!

 Given how few apples we had taken, I was rather pleased to have come come with 11 pints of homemade apple juice, although that really won't last long in this house!  4 pints disappeared during Sunday lunch!  Next year we will definitely be doing more. and may also venture into cider making!!

 Sophie, with a little guidance from Luke wrote her name, although she would only acknowledge the S as for Sophie, the rest were just shapes!

 Sunday I also decided that the air was getting a little nippy, so I decided I needed a hat that wouldn't look daft with my hair, and that would also fit on my rather large head!  So, I figured a tam, would work quite well.  And in amongst the apple pressing, Sunday lunch, family and everythig else, I was able to sit and crochet a hat, and by the night time, it was finished.  The wool, I had been given, and was using for a cardigan for myself.  But I didn't like the way it was knitting up, so I thought I'd use some of that, and I love how it has crocheted up, it looks jewel like in place, and I think I may just add a tassle to the centre of it with a few beads or gems on.

Blimey, so that was Sunday.  The rest of the week zoomed by so fast no pictures were taken!  Monday was busy preparing for visitors.  Stuart's nephew, Tom, and his partner, Denise, were coming to stay for a couple of days, as Denise had a training course nearby. 

Tuesday was my Grandma's funeral.  Stuart took the day off work to look after the children, and Mum and I went to Northampton to say our farewells to Grandma.  A sad day, one I was not looking forward to, as I still feel rather raw from the loss of Jean. Grandma was buried in a lovely green burial site (I love these places, they feel so alive), and they held a service of celebration afterwards, which was not exactly how I would have liked to say my goodbyes, but is what Grandma would have liked, so I guess that is what counts.  I returned home to our visitors, and Tom disappeared with Luke and Stuart to the Warhammer club, whilst Denise and I chatted about knitting, spinning, crochet and all things woolly, plus she has come up with a solution to the crochet blanket problem, which I will attempt to sort out this next week!  A lovely end to a busy, emotional day. 

The rest of the week has been entertaining guests (Sophie was excellent at this!!), and all the usual stuff.  But we have now reached half term (teacher training day today) and we can all breathe out and relax for a week. 

Preserving

Lots of these from the allotment. Now I have worked out how to get them whilst they are edible (ie pick them just before they get ripe) means there probably won't have to be as much of... ...this being made! Apple and Plum jam, all from the lottie. Those kilner jars hold quite a bit, so it should keep us going for a while.

Some foraged damsons from a trip to our local park ended up as some Damson Gin...

...along with some damson jam. I just love the colour, smell and taste of damson jam.

And it looks like there's some more preserving on the horizon. Two marrows to be turned into marrow and ginger jam, and look at these green tomatoes. I discovered my tomato plants had blight, so had to pick all the fruit before the blight spread to them. So green tomato chutney is now on the cards too.

I'm also wanting to do some hedgerow cordial, more damson things, sloe gin, apple chutney, and mincemeat. Looks like I'll be spending a good few hours in the kitchen then!