Marmalade and Exercise - a study in stickiness

It's turned very cold again these last few days,and they are threatening us with snow, although I suspect it may not come this far south. I think we may get it as sleet or rain, instead.

On Friday I went into town and bought around 6 lbs of seville oranges, to make marmalade, and yesterday evening I did the juicing and chopping peel stage of the first batch (using around 2 lbs of oranges, which is as much as will fit into my largest saucepan without overflowing at the boiling sugar stage). By the time I had finished, it was too late to finish the whole process, as the peel has to be boiled for about 2 hours, to soften it, before you add the sugar, so I left it all to soak in water over night.

This morning turned out to be very cold and frosty but also clear and sunny. This is the sight which greeted me from my bedroom window as I made the bed.

As my friend Spacedlaw commented, ideal weather for a walk. I agreed. I spent the morning making marmalade, but once that was done, and a dozen jars sitting cooling (and, I hope, setting!) in the kitchen, I set out for a walk.

path

It was cold and bright and beautiful, but also very wet and muddy.

stream

And did I mention cold? I took a circular route, and the sun went it when I was at bout the most distant point, so the second half of the walk was both colder and, as a result, brisker, than the first half!

1st batch of marmalade of 2013

When I got home (at which point I had to change not only my shoes, but also my jeans, as they were so muddy) I was happy to find that my marmalade seems to be setting nicely.

And I was very good, and have cleaned up both the walk-related muddiness, and the marmalade-related stickiness, and vacuumed everywhere, so I have a nice clean, citrus-scented house, and a marked feeling of accomplishment.

In Which Further Blizzards Fail to Materialise

At the risk of tempting fate, and calling down further snow upon us, it seems that the additional snow forecast for this afternoon has held off - it was quite overcast so didn't appear to be anything like as cold as it was yesterday or on Friday.

Indeed, by mid afternoon it looked as though the street outside was clearer than it has been since it first snowed, on Wednesday, with patches where the ashphalt is visible again, and a lot of people seem to have gone out so there were fewer parked cars. I decided to see whether I could safely drive out to the main(er) road, on the bass that if I could, I could park overnight and then, even if it freezes again overnight I would be close enough to the treated roads to get out and be able to get to work.

My plan worked, and as the road was completely clear when I got to the end of the street, I decided to go a little further, and drove over to Bradford-on-Avon, where I went for a short wander along by the canal.

The canal (The Kennet & Avon) was frozen, although there were places, by the lock, under bridges, and where a small stream drains into it where it was not frozen - there were also places where the ice had been broken and refrozen - it looked at thought the ice was between 1" and 2" thick, and from the foot-prints in the slush on top of the ice it was clear that it was strong enough to bear the weight of the swans and other waterbirds., although various holes seems to show that it was not strong enough to bear the weight of various lumps of stone being heaved into it!

A little further down the canal one comes to the Tithe Barn, which was built in the early 1300s and used to belong to Shaftesbury Abbey, until Henry VIII pur a stop to all that, of course! It's a beautiful (and enormous) building, and it is one of those places where it tends suddenly to hit me how rich in history we are here: The barn dates from the 14th C, with the church having owned the farm & land since 1001, and the barn continued to be used, certainly into the 1950s...

I enjoyed my walk, and, in accordance with the original plan, subsequently left my car down the street, in the hope that I may be able to drive tomorrow morning..

Happy 2010!

First of all, Happy New Year to you all!

I've just returned home, to a cat who seems pleased to see me, (although he will no doubt find a way to punish him for leaving him to the tender mercies of my excellent cat-sitter for the past 4 days)


My sister, K, had suggested that it would be fun to spend New Year together, and as a result we rented a small Tower in a village on the edge of Cheltenham, chosen on the basis that
(a) the Cotswolds are pretty, and equally reachable for all of us
(b) Who wouldn't want to stay in a tower, if they had the opportunity?
(c) It was available for New Year
(d) it was affordable.

We had originally hoped that the party would consist of me, both sisters, K's partner C , my brother and his girlfriend and K&C's friend, B. However, my brother wasn't able to join us so there ended up being the five of us.

All of us except B, who couldn't make it until New Year's Eve, arrived on Wednesday - K, C & I turned up in the afternoon, and busied ourselves with the essentials, such as bagsy-ing the different rooms, taking a delivery of groceries, unpacking and, perhaps most important of all, locating the nearest pub, which was about 5 minutes walk away, and had a wonderful fire and some rather good beer (Butcombe)...



It was a bit of a wrench to leave the pub and walk back in what turned out to be a bitterly cold evening in time to met E, and start cooking supper.

On New Year's Eve we went out for a cold but bracing walk to the next village along, through some frosty and muddy fields, with a view of Cheltenham racecourse, and the somewhat unexpected sight of a steamtrain in the distance, then back via the second of 'our' village's pubs (The Plough) which had no fire, but *did* have some truly magnificent beer (Adnam's Broadside).

We had decided that we would have a proper formal meal for New Year, and would all dress accordingly, and had also decided to push the boat out when it came to the menu - I was in charge of the main course and the timeing, but happily had several sous-chefs to whom I was able to delagate tasks such as mushroom-choppage... And of course the Peach Bellinis helped, too ... Once all the preparation was done, and the first course in the oven, we all went to get scrubbed up in order to see out the year in stlye.

Then, pausing only for a quick photo-call, and a glass of fizz, we sat down to dine.

Menu

Home made Tomato Soup
or
Baked Camembert
***

Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese Terrine

with green salad

****

Beef Wellington

with

Roast Potatoes and Seasonal Vegetables

***

Coffee Pudding

with whipped cream & toasted almonds

We had planned for a cheese course, too, but none of us were hungry by that time! In order not to take things *too* seriously, the gentlemen of the party had carefully accessorized their dinner jackets and black ties with a number of silly seasonal hats; not quite enough for one with each course, but almost!

The rest of the evening passed with further games, then prosecco to toast the New Year, followed, for reasons which now escape me, by a viewing of Hot Fuzz.

We did very little on New Year's Day, but on 2nd January, which was a gloriously bright, sunny day, we decided upon another walk.

This time we went to another nearby town - Winchcombe, where we took a circular walk, up the hill behind the town, through fields of sheep (and, a little later, some fine Gloucester Old Spot pigs), then back past Sudely castle.

Although it was very sunny, there had been hard frosts and in a lot of places there was still frost and ice on the ground, only occasionally breaking through to thick mud, in the most unexpected places!

As attentive readers may have guessed, we finished our walk in the local pub - The White Hart.

Sadly, that brought to a close our stay, and this morning we had no time to do anything except pack up and go our separate ways, but it was, I think, a thoroughly succesful New Year celebration.

I hope all of you had an equally enjoyable time.

A Walk in the Country

It was chilly today, but around lunchtime the sun came out, so I decided to forget about the housework, and to head out for the afternoon.

I went to Stourhead, which is owned by the National Trust, now. The house is not open in the winter, but the park is open all year round, and it's a lovely place to go for a walk. There is a lake, with ornamental bridge, miniature Parthenon, and temple of Apollo, not to mention the grotto, thatched cottage and neoclassical summerhouse.

Its a little late for the best of the autumn coours , but there were still some lovely acers clinging on to the last of their crimson leaves, and plenty of beech leaves in every shade of copper. There are masses of rhodedendrons and although it's the wrong time of year for their flowers they have that dark green, shiny foliage against which the other colours show up beautifully.

I didn't see any deer this time - which probably had a lot to do with the high number of dogs and small and excited children around - but there were ducks, and swans upon the lake.

I saw several robins, and blackbirds, and a few chaffinches and something which may or may not have been a goldfinch.

All in all, it was a very

After my walk, I headed to the farm shop where I bought 3 different types of local apples, and some Medlars (the last, simply because I have never had them before, and know them only from Shakeapeare and other literary sources. They will have to be kept for a while to ripen properly, and it does appear that opinion is divided as to whether they are worth eating or not, but it will be interesting to see what they're like.

And as an added bonus, I got a lovely big paper bag to take my groceries home in, which proved very popular with Tybalt once I had emptied it of fruit.

A Good Day.