The longer I leave this, the more happens, so it's about time to bite the bullet, grab the bull by the horns and put the pedal to the metal. Metaphorically speaking, that is.
ITEM. The inlaws (ma, pa and bro) came to stay for a long weekend over Easter. Not a bad weekend, all told, and it was nice to be away from work for almost a week.
ITEM. On the first night of the visit the water stopped flowing, signalling our first crisis in the new house. Luckily pa-inlaw has experience with plumbing and to cut a long story short, much of the weekend was spent replacing the header tank in the loft which, after some 50 years of sterling service, appeared to be held together by a combination of rust and limescale.
ITEM. About a bottle and a half of the rosehip wine has now been drunk and another bottle presented to the guy who first persuaded me to try homebrewing and gave me my first couple of demijohns. While it isn't exactly Chateau Lafitte, I reckon it's a well drinkable drop of plonk, and as the first wine I finished (not counting the abortive port 10 years back and the apple wine made at school -- but that's another story), I'm taking it as great encouragement.
ITEM. A couple of weeks back, my gallon of mead remained cloudy. After coming back from a local shop with the better part of a kilo of black bananas (which cost 10p), I tried out a trick from CJJ Berry, which involves boiling up black bananas with water and using the juice as finings. A few days later and what do you know? -- the mead was almost crystal clear! Life is good.
ITEM. The latest bit of obsession is gardening for food. Having dug up large chunks of the garden, I have planted carrots, onions, lettuces and potatos, with leaks and cabbages to join them soon. In addition, we have a couple of apple trees (planted the day after we bought the house), rhubarb and a gooseberry bush plus assorted herbs around the place. Now we just have to keep weeds and pests clear, and trust to the climate.
