The End of the Festive Season (by sarah)

Today we had our last Christmas visitor, Barbara, so I put out the minced pies and cut up Christmas Cake and we apologised as we seem to have lost her tea towel with Mary's print on it that we were going to give her - so we gave her same homemade jam instead.

She gave Mary some lovely Hello Kitty wellies which is brilliant as it was starting to be a squeeze to get her into the ones she has and the previous bigger set she lost one of whilst we were out shopping one day. Jean got an art casse which she was excited about and Al got cheese which is always a hit with him. I got a pot of tulips which shall be going outside the front door.

Jean also tidied the front garden, litter picking the litter that blows in and sweeping up the leaves - mainly as she is whipping through her worst witch books and wants to earn money to buy the missing ones.

There would be photos of today but unfortunately Jean was taking photos yesterday and dropped it and today it has gone completely screwy It was on it's way out anyway which is why I had saved up money to get a good one but I spent it on the TV so that we could use the X-Box, I do not regret this but I do now find myself with out a camera - right at the point where I am trying to launch myself back into things seriously - sigh.

On the other hand I do have a rather serious back log of photos to sort out anyway so maybe this will give me time to do that?

After Al's aunt left we started taking down all the decorations to general chagrin of the kids - Mary was walking about saying 'Oh! No!' whilst Jean was whining that the room was starting to look so bare which we felt too. Somehow Christmas went so fast this year.

It has been a fun one though.

Of course tomorrow I have one of my best friends from school visiting in a sort of post-Christmas/pre-birthday type of way which is going to be ace!

And last night I forgot to go to the pub with one of my local friends which I feel really bad about - It wasn't a good day medically for me but still...

Anyway the good thing about the decorations coming down is that I am in the mood for Spring Cleaning to be honest. We started today with putting hooks up to hang various house type things up, such as sun catchers and wall art butterflies and the broom and duster and carrier bag suasage.

Today also marks the constructed language Lojban's 25th Birthday - this is the language that Alaric has been learning for the past few years and that he has been teaching to Mary. So we have begun work on a little language comic type thing - we came up with the idea ages ago but haven't had the time to act upon it!

Apart from that we made bread in the bread maker and made our own sauce for the chickpea hodge podge we had for dinner - January is already a month of highs and lows but net effect seems to be positive at the moment.

Important Lessons (by sarah)

Well I have been making preserves again

The important lessons I have learnt are - do not fill my my preserving pan up with more than 9 pints of strained juice - I put 12 in thinking it would be ok not realising exactly how much space the sugar would take up!

Lesson No. 2 - always scaled the jelly straining bag - I am actually using a wine sieving bag but hey same prinicple. I couldnt work out why the first lot I strained went through brilliently whilst the second lot is still straining! Drip, drip... and drip again it goes. This is becuase the first lot I poured boiling water through to steralise it in a fit of hygien paranoia where as the second lot ent into a cold damp bag. I have since found out about 'scalding' jelly straining bags/seives - this is where you pour boiling water onto the bag inorder to allow the fluid to drain through it rather than being absorbed by the bag which then acts as a sort of seal for the liquid left in the bag.

Lesson No. 3 - make sure that when dealing with fermentation buckets full of juice for jam making or preserving pans or anything else - do it, especially any pouring - over a plastic matt.

Lesson N0. 4 - make sure that when Al is helping you pour hot liquids that he is wearing shoes! It saves on moaning!

Lesson No. 5 - no matter how many jars you think you need - it will not be enough - so double the number!!!

Lesson No. 6 - recipy books have a strange idea of temperature convertions! 220 F apparently equals 110 C - yeah right on whos scale? Not that this actually matters but it just annoyed me - I am aweare its the same magnitute but still!

Lesson No. 7 - make sure that there are enough tea towles clean.

Today I went whoring (by sarah)

Ok well actually I went hawing but I couldnt resist the pun!

I went for a walk this afternoon with the idea of picking elder berries but found there to be very few elders all of which where behind barbed wire even if they where heavily laden :/ There were however loads and loads of blackthorns heavey with sloes which after picking five I realised were not quiet ripe!

I then looked around and realised that the hawthorns where groaning under the weight of their little red berries - well they are one of the most prevalent hegderow plants - I started picking the little beuts! Got nearly a whole basket too

Some trees haws were not quiet ripe so there will be plenty for me to pick all the way through the autum I feel - there are so many of the berries that I didnt even have to think about how much to leave for the animals! I gave up on trees when I got bored rather than when I couldnt reach any more berries

What am I going to do with them all I hear you cry!

Well I am going to dry as many as I can for use in a berry tea - a tea that is supposed to be good for those with high blood pressure and/or heart problems - I'm going to get mum and dad to check with their drs if its ok for them and add it to the dandilion tea I force feed mum.

There has been much merryment here whilst me and Al have been 'doing' the haws i.e. pulling the storks off of them - but well this is us and our wrapped and twisted minds so innuendo here we come!!! I also said quiet innocently that I couldnt do all these haws tonight!

Al is currently hawing away!

Of course any left over haws will be frozen for incoporation into hedgerow jam and/or haw jelly. Mmmm I'm sure that you can make a coffee substituet too but now cant find the recipe :/

Dandilions (by sarah)

Well we are pretty much burried under dandilions here the fields that surround us are just covered in the things so I thought why dont we do something useful with this little lot! So out came the herb books, the food for free books and the wine making books!

Since then (which was about a month ago) I have been drying the petals for wine, I have quiet alot now but it still wont make much wine. My plan is to steadily pick and dry them all throught the summer as I still get in so much pain when standing or picking etc... this way it doesnt matter if I cant pick enough to start the wine off strat away. Having said that I still hope to make a batch from fresh dandilion flowers so that we can compare the two wines when they are ready!

I had a few demijohns already thanks to dad! and then Babara has lent us the stuff that Ron (Al's step granddad) used to have for wine making - thisw basically includes everything we were missing including a big bucket that is graduated (has measurements on) with lid, and a corking machin!

I am very excited and cant wait to get going with this properly!

The leaves have made their way into many a salad we've been eating and now I am drying the roots to make a coffee substitute. I will also be drying the leaves as a herb in its own right and making tea from the leaves and roots - dried again. The main reason for the tea is that it is a dieretic that helps and is prescribed for people with gout and as poor mum has gout - not nice not pleasant and very painful - I thought it might help her!

So the dandilion problem is still a problem cos they are everywhere including blocking the doors to the little garage but I will be making much use of them:

Wine Herb Salard Root vegtable Tea Coffee

Pretty good for one plant that is seen as a weed!