Saturday, 08-04-23

 Morning, everyone.  After a gorgeous day yesterday and a cold night (just above zero with just the tiniest hint of a frost) it started off lovely and clear but a bit of a mist is rolling over at the moment.  I am sure the sun will burn it away in a while.

Well, Slimming World was jolly good as usual although some regulars are away; they were missed.  One of our lovely members hit target, much to everyone's delight, but couldn't stay to celebrate as he is a minister and it is a busy weekend for him.  I lost two pounds which I was very happy with!

I was go glad I got the house cleaner-ready because they turned up much earlier than usual.  That gave me a clear afternoon, which was nice.

Something I didn't do the other day is go through the frozen fruit tray in my front opening freezer so I brought the shelf inside and started in.  Apart from the usual, I found a bag of damsons that had been masquerading as blackberries (so that's this year's damson jam sorted!) and, apart from the big, juicy shop bought blackberries, I found two bags of smaller, cooking blackberries, not very nice to eat raw.
Now, I no longer eat or make much jam but those two bags contained the last of the blackberries from Mum and Dad's garden, brought back when I cleared the freezer, so, despite them being pretty old, I wasn't going to just discard them.  
I popped them in a pan yesterday, simmered them and pushed them through my mouli so now I have
seedless puree ready for sugar and a boiling up to make jam.  By the end of today, I should have a nice row of pots of seedless blackberry jam to share out among family and friends.  I shall call it Mum and Dad's jam!

I'm quite looking forward to getting the maslin pan out after such a long time.

While on the subject, I also have quite an old can of Mamade marmalade, also from Mum's pantry, and I want to make that up too.  Maybe I will do that tomorrow.

I'd love to send some of it across the internet for you but - nope, far too sticky to try!

Today starts off with a small shop - it's only a week since the last one but I am out of things like milk (the builders made great inroads into my milk), eggs, some salad stuff and I don't have enough sugar for the jam/marmalade.
(Which reminds me - I need to rootle in the garage for some jamjars - another reason to tidy the place up a bit!)

Then it is our SW friend walk, the first of the year as the organiser has been in Australia for an extended holiday.  I'm looking forward to this.

Once home, the rest of the day is my own and I will spend some of it stewing over a hot maslin pan!

Also, I've pretty much finished the granny blanket.  I just need to steam press the border and then I'll take a photo.  I know it's not everyone's cuppa but I like it.

I popped into the garden earlier and took these two.

The Victoria plum hasn't has loads of blossom but we will see . . .

The Beth pear, on the other hand, looks as if it's going to be absolutely smothered in blossom so, even if there's not much fruit, it should be a real picture and a delight to the eyes by the end of the week.

Well, I'd better go and do the shopping; Morrisons is now open and shouldn't be too busy yet.

Have a lovely Saturday and enjoy everything you are hoping to do today.  xx