Snowy Days

Welcome back; it's lovely to have you visiting again. When I tried to do this post a few days ago, I couldn't load my photos because of a server error. I've no idea what caused it or how to fix it. Thankfully I have a new iMac, just set up today, and I'm able to load my photos without any problem.

On Friday last the husband was off for the day; I'm always off on Fridays. We were going to take the trailer and get loaded up with wood blocks but we woke to a white world. We decided that discretion was the better part of valour and didn't try taking the car out with the trailer attached.

We leave plenty of food for the wild birds and they really needed it. The feeders are next to our beehives.

 I couldn't resist taking some photos as it looked really lovely.

 All of a sudden the snow started falling again. It was beautiful to watch though it made everything look like the world was in black and white instead of colour.

The poor wee birds. They still had to come looking for food even though it was snowing.

These two daffodils are the only two in the garden that are blooming!

Now it just so happens that on Thursday last week (the day before it snowed), I saw a pattern for crocheted socks in the Simply Crochet magazine. And, I saw where Daisy had actually crocheted said socks. In fact, she has since crocheted another pair for her mother. Well, when I saw the snow I knew what I simply had to do; crochet a pair of cosy socks for myself. I couldn't start right away as we braved the elements and went out for coffee. It was actually Friday evening before I could finally get out some yarn, my hooks and the pattern and get started. I thought it would be a good idea to work the two socks together. So make the toe for the first sock, make the toe for the second sock, work the first stripe of the first sock, work the first stripe of the second sock and so on. Things went really well until I had done the number of rows stated in the pattern before I was supposed to turn the heel. I have long, narrow feet which necessitated me having to work an extra five rows before the foot section was long enough! That held me back!! I crocheted like someone possessed as I really wanted to get them finished before going to bed. Anyway, I turned the heel on both socks and crocheted the number of rows that were supposed to be completed before the rib top. Again this was too short for me and I needed an extra three rows. Too late though for Friday night and I had to leave them to finish on Saturday.

The snow was still about on Saturday as there were some more snow showers overnight. It was a beautiful day so, after being out in the morning, I spent the afternoon in the kitchen. I made more blackcurrant cordial and a batch of cranberry sauce. We had some with Sunday lunch and it was delicious.

Then I also baked apple and blackberry tart using fruit from our garden. This is the first tart ...

... and this is the second.

Side by side!

These were also delicious even though I say so myself!

What about my socks? I got them finished on Saturday evening and took some photos on Sunday morning.

The socks are very cosy and I just love looking at them. They make me laugh every time I see them. I'm hoping you'll let me know what you think of them.

I'm just so excited to be able to get back to my blogging with this new iMac. It's taking a bit of getting used to but I'm picking it up pretty quickly.

Something else exciting happened. I won a giveaway! And my prize arrived today. It is a beautiful pink rabbit that Suzy very kindly sent me. You can see the rabbit here but I will also be taking photos of it and letting you see how lovely it is.

That's all for now. Thank you for all your comments and a welcome to new followers. I hope you are managing to keep warm wherever you are and hopefully not too warm.

Blackcurrant Cordial

Hello and welcome back again. Christmas has been and gone and we're more or less back to normal. The husband has taken the Christmas trees to use in the garden; the pine needles are especially good for spreading over beds with fruit bushes.

Talking of fruit bushes, we had a big blackcurrant harvest last summer. Rather than use the fruit there and then, I washed it, bagged it and put it in the freezer. This makes it very handy for making jam or cordial later on. I recently made some blackcurrant cordial so I thought I'd let you see the process. I got the recipe on the internet years ago and can't remember where. But it's just a basic recipe that you could find anywhere.

So, this is what you need:

450g blackcurrants
250g caster sugar
260ml water
whole lemon

De-stalk and wash the blackcurrants. You don't need to be too fussy with the de-stalking as none of the fruit ends up in the cordial. Just make sure there aren't anything creatures still there!

Place the blackcurrants, sugar and water into a saucepan. Melt the sugar over low heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar.


 
Once the sugar has dissolved, bring the syrup to a gentle simmer. Simmer the fruits for 5 minutes.

 
Now add the juice and skin of the lemon. You can see I'm using two lemons because I made double the quantity.

Bring the syrup back to simmer for a further 5 minutes.


 

 
Let the cordial cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile sterilise a glass bottle.

Pass the cordial through a fine sieve (or muslin).

 
This is what was left behind after the juice had dripped through. The wild birds eat it once it has gone cold.

 
Pour the cordial into the sterilised bottle, cool and keep refrigerated until needed. I like to strain it through my funnel to make sure there are no wee bits still left in the cordial.

 
There it is! You only need a small amount of cordial diluted with plenty of water.

 

This same method can be used for other fruits such as grapes. There are some grapes in my freezer that I must use to make cordial. The grape cordial is very mild and I really like it. Sometimes I mix blackcurrants and grapes too.

 

Back in the summer I made some pink elderflower cordial which I froze in plastic bottles. We had it at Christmas, diluted with sparkling water. Very tasty!

 

There are some crochet projects that have been finished and progress with knitting that I hope to show you very soon. Just need to get the camera into action again.

 

All the very best for now. Thanks for all your lovely comments; I'm looking forward to getting lots more this year.