This week has been interesting with a few minor problems. I bottled up one of the demi-johns of wine but seeing as neither of us had thought to label it there was over an hour of guess work involved to try and identify it. It didn't smell the same as the pea pod wine but then it smelled far nicer than the dandelion wine. Oh dear. What made it worse was finding out how easy it was to put the cork in the bottles thanks to the gigantic device that looked like a cross between a nut cracker and a corkscrew because after proudly lining them all up I noticed a tiny black fly had somehow made it into one of the bottles. Argh!! The second demi-john has to wait to be bottled as we have run out of bottles and it may take a little while to drink enough wine so we can use the bottles. What a tough life.
I harvested all of the beetroot, being careful not to cut the stems too short in case they bled out and as I laid them on the potting table to dry out a bit my OH pointed out that I had laid them all out at the same angle...then moved one so it was upside down while I was looking away. Don't worry, I got my own back. My sweetpeas don't seem to want to die back at all so I am still harvesting a bunch of flowers every three days. Things could not sound more productive although I had to wrestle with some guilt over not growing any vegetables over the winter.
Yesterday started with a giggle because I opened the sitting room curtains and it must have scared Fat Pigeon who was sitting on the little gate because he fell off it. Nothing was hurt except his feathered pride. JR continues to warm my ankle as I potter about and he has faithfully warmed my toes as I have finished knitting all of the mini Christmas stockings. Every crafted gift for little ones this year and the snowflakes I am crocheting for Tewkesbury Abbey Christmas Fair have been completed so now I shall start working on the decorations for the house. My little ones have helped gather pine cones which have dried out in Mrs Jones, the rayburn, ready to be beaded, bowed and glittered however they choose. It might seem silly but in some ways I am very frugal and the growing trend to attach labels to clothing with little ribbons and safety pins has added to my stash of ribbons and pins but this time of year I like to order extra ribbons. Actually 'extra' doesn't quite cover it. Last year I bought a cute length of ribbon which had little gingerbread men on it and my plan is to buy some more just like that. These fine details will have to wait though as the splint on my hand is restricting my crafting more than I would like although I admit that there was a rather dreary day last weekend where I just sat and watched one Christmas film after the other. Yes, it's early but thinking about Christmas makes me all happy.
There is now a tub of crumble topping living in the fridge as I do like to make it as a quick pudding on hungry days or just days that need pudding. I don't tend to measure it all out as it makes extra washing up but having a quick standby comfort pudding on grey days is essential.
Unfortunately I have to admit that my homemaking skills do not extend to taming ironing piles so I had better go and practice that now.
Hugs from Haggis Land
Jx
