Saturday evening

I had some very worthy plans this morning, didn't I? Plans involving school work, music practice and housework. Well, I am glad to day I did none of that! Not my fault, blame DD.

You see, she DID want to come fruit picking and what's more, she remembered that we had said she would than come back to mine and we would sort out the fruit, do some jamming,etc, and generally have a most industrious time while DG entertained himself.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Not only did we pick loads of strawberries, we also picked raspberries and then some gooseberries and Lathcoats Farm. Then we went into the farm shop and had a good trawl round. Back home, we had lunch and then set to. The net result so far is:
Three bottles of strawberry gin
Six pots of seedless raspberry jam
loads of individually frozen strawberries, nearly ready to be bagged
Nearly 2k of strawberries mixed with jam sugar and lemon juice, ready for jamming tomorrow morning
Some gooseberries open freezing as I type
Gooseberries simmering away to soften the skins, etc, preliminary to making jam either tonight or, more likely, tomorrow.

While trawling through the Internet, I found a likely looking recipe for strawberry cordial so guess what - I'm going a-picking again tomorrow, weather permitting. It looks dead easy, is a similar method to the home made lemon cordial I make that is so delicious, and it keeps in the fridge for up to six months. That's my kind of cordial!

What a fantastic day! I wish, oh, how I wish I could do this sort of thing for a living.