Wednesday 30 July 2008

The Good Life

The school holidays are great because I have lots of free time and don't have to work and can do pretty much whatever I please for six weeks. The first week flew by and already the second is going much the same way.

Shona was here with us last week so we did lots of craft type things, visited the park a number of times and had fun at the allotment. We have a resident frog there who has his own pond. I use the word pond but really it's a large plant pot which has rain water in it and Mr Frog seems to have claimed it as his own. This inspired Shona to make another pond so she dug a hole, put a large bowl in it with rocks for the frog to get out of, and now we are waiting for Mrs Frog to show up. So far, there hasn't been a taker, but I'm optimistic.

The past couple of days I've been busy making jam. Each year the allotment provides more fruit. This year we planted some new strawberry plants and had the best strawberries ever. The strawberries didn't make it into jam jars because they were all eaten before the kettle could be boiled. That's not to say there weren't many, because there were plenty but they were far too irresistible. At the weekend we picked the red, white and black currants and have made jam from these. An allotment neighbour invited me to pick some of her gooseberries so I made gooseberry jam for the first time. I got seriously attacked by the gooseberry bush, but the jam has made it worthwhile. When I was at my Grandma's on Monday she invited me to pick some of her gooseberries and I forgot and I'm gutted about this now because I would love to make some more of this. Today I'm making rhubarb and ginger jam, which I've made before and is quite lovely.

This time last year I was already thinking about Christmas presents and started the big sock mission for family presents. This year I'm not doing that. Instead people are getting jam. Firstly it's cheaper, secondly it's quicker and thirdly I've almost finished already. There will not be the Christmas Eve knitting there was last year. I suppose all knitters have to go through that naive phase of thinking knitting for everyone is a great idea. It starts out as a great idea but ends up being a massive burden and a lot of the recipients did not seem impressed or grateful for the huge effort I had put in. I guess we live and learn.

Anyway, the only distraction from this domestic bliss is the car's MOT which is happening today. I really hope it doesn't cost me a lot of money this time. There is a forum meet tonight at the Wool Baa and I want to go by wheel and not by foot. Even I'm not that retro.

4 comments:

Caroline M said...

I did jam and pickles for one Christmas. Only once, most recipients were unappreciative and I didn't feel as if it was worth the effort. The chilli jelly was really good and wasted on them.

McKnitty said...

Thanks for the tip off - the gooseberry jam is staying here then.

Knot Another Knitter said...

I have an apple tree with loads of cooking apple things on it that you can have (the apples, not the tree) if you can do any kind of jam making baking thing out of those?

maramcp said...

Mmm! Domestic Goddess! Am impressed, I have been severely lacking the energy to do anything culinary lately... I don't think slicing lemon to go in G+T counts...