jam chutney and wine

Well the E has broken on my keyboard making it very hard to type! I have been making jam - an antiviral elderberry jam found here http://www.jameswong.co.uk/#/antiviral-jam/4548324208 I made double and got 2 large jars and one small one. The house round the corner have left a bucket of dropped cooking apples outside every day for anyon to take so I used 3 of their apples. I also used a dried eucalyptus leaf and 2 fresh homegrown chillies and a lemon rather than lime, so slightly altered the recipe. My recipe is 800g elberberries 3 small cooking apples ( type unknown) 800ml water juice of 2 lemons a few dried eucalyptus leaves ( from my parents tree which was cut down last autumn) 2 fresh chillies 1kg of sugar I boiled the ingredients in a the water, seived the mixture and collected the pulp. Then added the sugar and boiled and simmered till it reached gel point. I actually have a jam thermometer but it never reached the mark for jam but is very much a set jelly so looking like my thermometer which cost £9 was a waste of money. In the end I relied on the chilled plate test my Mum used to do! I left a pot outside the house where the apples came from in thanks. Well I reckon of you take something even if offered you should give something back. This was on friday. Today I made apply and blackberry jam and green bean and apple pickalili. Oh and syphoned the peapod shuck ( wine) into bottles and finally at 21:16 am cooking some dinner. I am knackered and starving and need to eat now. I have not had time all day for food but have existed just on coffee and raspberry tea! I saw Walter this morning too. Came for peas. The weather is getting colder anmd he needs an easy feed I think. Came for brakfast. Ate loads and then flew off as always. He has been very friendly recently sitting with me in the early morning just after dawn. he comes and sits in the alder tree and just stays there. I sit and drink tea in a garden chair. We have a strange but lovely relationship me and my wild pigeon. Hes most definitely a wild animal but seems to feel afection for his rearers and like to be known to us. Amazing really. I feel so fortunate, I could almost say blessed but I am not religious but our relationship is not at all as I would have dreamed could happen. I expected Walter to fly away free and that would be that. But still he makes it very plain he wants to visit us. But only when the world is asleep in the early morning and there is just him and me awake in the garden! I sent my book off to the agents - or the first 50 pages. Every day when the postman comes I expect it to come back but so far nothing. First agent I have approached tho so time will tell. I am afraid tpo hope after all the likelyihood they will want to be my agents is so slight. Not that it isnt a good book. It is. But I have already rewritten page 10 so who knows. Maybe it is not time yet?

SMEG HAVE LET US DOWN AGAIN!

Still I am waiting for Smeg to get round to fixing our dishwasher. For a so-called up-market company or brand SMEG is really crap! I mean why cant they just fix the thing. In nearly 2 years we have had a working dishwasher for only about one month. The rest of the time its either been half working using rubber bands to fix it or completely out of action. Very nice of SMEG to give us a replacement but it is no better than the original one. DO NOT BUY SMEG anyone who reads this. Do yourself a favour. Buy a cheaper brand that may not look as good but will probably serve you faithfully for around 5 years. The warranty is up on this one in December. I suspect by January we will be saving for a new one and its going to be a Bosch or Candy or hotpoint or anyone but not SMEG. And you know what as long as Live I will never ever buy smeg again. AND I will advise anyone I ever meet who thinks about it not to.They are meant to be coming again tomorrow but something tells me by next week there will be yet another problem with this useless dishwasher.

More dishwasher problems

Well it is 6 months since SMEG gave us a replacement dishwasher for their piece of junk we bought. Again it is broken!!! Interestingly just as I started to look at fridges. I need a fridge desperately. Cant afford it right now but had a quick look round and ofcourse liked SMEG. Well I am not going to buy anything SMEG ever again!!!! What a load of expensive rubbish made by smeg. The customer services dept are saying we may not have a warranty for the replacement dishwasher as well so could be back to doing washing up. May have to talk to trading standards about it. Considering our bottom of the range Candy was thrown out to make our house look more saleable because the Candy was an ancient rusty but working machine, Smeg really is rubbish. They look nice but are unreliable in performance. Blogger has changed and I cant find anything!! Suppose I will get used to it eventually. I am going to try to blog regularly again. Walter has a new baby. About a month ago he/she flew down to a tree and showed me where it had had an egg hatch. Weird. This wild bird is very friendly. I am worried tho cos seems to have a hole in chest. Unlikely to be a bullet hole since where it is there would be no bird left so have to assume he has been caught in something.Also shows no pain and continues to preen when I speak to him. Anyway there is new fledgling and like parents is unafraid and sits on the tree and I can talk to it. We now have a whole flock. I wonder how long till the council cull them. They could do so. These tho are wood pigeons not feral pigeons so I do not know if they will cull. I hope not and certainly will not allow access in my garden. I am prepared to go to court if necessary to try to stop them. Having said that they have not said they will yet but nasty neighbour has been complaining cos they sit waiting to be fed on her roof in the morning. If we had a bigger garden I would put up a dove cote. Mind you I have been told the starlings tend to be the residents not pigeons and doves. Still would be a nice feature. The business has near enough ended. Sad but true. Since no business debts I hope one day it may pick up. Trouble is vegan or not many folk are being forced to buy cheap cosmetics from places like the £1 shop. Cant blame em. I am struggling to survive. Alcohol is off the menu completely. I havent made any wine either since am using the wine butts as water butts cos we have a hose pipe ban. Mind you right this minute we also have torrential rain!. Funniest drought I have ever known. I am just waiting to be reported for using the hose to empty the water butt which contains our bath and sink water. Greywater. We diverted it to use on the garden in droughts but with all the rain I have to keep emptying it else it overflows. Our lovely neighbours will eventually report us if they havent already. Still no offense is being committed and cant see the water company minding. If ever we get to have a real shortage of water we will be able to keep our garden alive. I am growing loads of veg again. We already have radishes and lettuces and oriental greens which can either be cooked or eaten raw. Thats in the garden. Up the road at the allotment I have spring cabbage which is starting to flower so we need to eat asap. Spring onions and garlic and we have just planted some spuds. We have loads more spuds but it is so wet we cannot get them in. Need a day of sunshine to do it. I now have 2 allotments. The new one was wasteland a couple of weeks ago and took some serious clearing and rotovating.I think it could be good tho. Its 4 times the size of the old one and has great potential altho half of it is shady. I have been researching plants to grown in shade - edible plants that is. I am going to invest in saskatoons. They originate in Canada. They are very like blueberries which I love but will grow in any soil. I am having problems with the bluberries I already have. I am rubbish with acid loving plants. Saskatoons could be just what I need. There are also alpine berries which are similar to redcurrants so I am thinking of these as well. That would take care of most of the shady bit cos we can put compost bins and a shed on the rest of it and some sort of water catcher to divert the rain into a water butt - which we have yet to buy! I have great plans but currently not even the money to fence it! Still give a few months I am sure it will happen. So now all I have to do is try to get round to blogging...........

Walter is making nests

Its been months. I have been ill. Diagnosed with Raynauds which is not a nice complaint. I have probably had it years. remember symptoms going back to 1995. Still life goes on.
Walter has taken to sitting on the Alder tree morning and evening. This mornng he/she flew down into the shady garden where the snowdrops grow ( my garden is split into sections) and picked up a twig. Flew into the alder again and showed me then flew onto the one remaining leylandii and sat starting at me. I felt maybe I should go and I walked away but turned to watch just around the corner to see walter disapear into the middle of the leylandii. Well we had best let that one live now hadnt we! Lovely to know this creature though and more than a year after his/her release it is amazing that it seems to want to know me. Always at a distance for this is wild bird not a pet, but still walter makes himself known. He also seems very jealous when I tell my chickens they are beautiful or fluffy or whatever other silly things I tell them and starts to coo-coo to get my attention. I feel very privaledged to know this wild animal. I somehow doubt I will ever know another wild bird as well as this one. It is a once in a lifetime friendship this.

I am currently tryin to make a needle case. Its quite difficult since most patterns use flet and its wool so is not vegan. So far I am playing with velvet and various other fabric but have yet to make a decision. I used to have some felt squares infact. If they are still in the shed I may just have to give in and use them. After all I still own them even if they have been in a box for years and what is worst, to throw something useful cos it happens to be made of wool - I still bought them sometime, or to be a good vegan and go and buy something new. My morals do become a bit confusing sometimes.

Walter my wild pigeon

Its pretty amazing and many times I have queried it and not beleived what is in front of me but one year on my girl is on my bird table in front of my kitchen window and unlike all the other wild pigeons she /he but I think its a she , is not scared of the doves or the little birds. She chases them off the table cos its hers! She is my baby. She is wild and free and does not want me or any human near her but she cannot resist me and mick and so she comes and she walks right up to you should she chose to do so. Its a weird one and I am so privaledged to know her. A year ago she flew away and we expected that that is that but it was not. We feed her defrosted peas and so she comes home. I can honestly say I love my free wild pigeon. I hope she lives long. While she comes to feed I cannot move house. According to the ornithology soc. she might even make 17. The oldest known and tracken woodey made 17 so realistically she could get nto there or even older. So it seems I am here to stay................. We usually move house to go up the ladder and make money. OI refuse now to leave walter. Today I called her to say there were peas on the table and she swooped over me. She does a circuit around me. If you have never seen a pigeon do this is unbelieveable. To beginm with I just refused to beileieve but one year on I just have to give in. This is real. She comes home to feed and say hello. So do her babies but they are not tame. With Walter you can open the back door and she stays there and eats on the bird table. No other pigeon will stay. Most wont even eat if the kitchen light is on. Walter is my bird, free, not tame and truly wild............... the way she was meant to be

Robert Peston

Waht a complete idiot seems this man. I may well be wrong bearing in mind I am a complete fool regarding politics, but what a complete fool from what I just heard him say. Will anyone beleive him, if they do more fool them. The world is in a bad way but this man is a prat!!!! Ran prieur has more idea in his little finger than this complete prat does!!!! And that is besides our govt! idiot fool and prat!!!Sometimes I am so ashamed to be british!

to be an author?

Well I have been incredibly slack and life has again stopped me from blogging or that is the excuse. It has taken me most of the week but finally I am writing or intending to but have already scived off to get round to the emails I promised to send. Besides the rushing round after my Dad who is now coming home - more later on that!, I have decided it was sensible and time efficient to make what I need now for the next event rather than the usual last minute panic so have made the bath bombs needed for Lincoln Vegan fair which is on 12th! Maybe I am getting back into the routine. I used to be very good at this you know and lost it with the onset of the recession since stopped needing new stock. I can now tho guess just about what will sell and how much of it is needed depending on size of event. That means everything is pretty freshly made so no older stock hanging around and ofcourse it is all better when fresh too so better for customers to have newly made stuff. I have to buy some new tupperwares since have altered the way I am storing and transporting stuff. I used to store and transport in boxes. The trouble is the different scents seem to transfer to each other. The product is fine when unwrapped but the wrapper on soap etc gets to smell of all the others around it which inhibits the smelling of the diffrent varieties I do and puts people off. If I store say 6 bars in one sealed tupperware the scent is very strong and they know just what they are getting. It works loads better and sales have increased. I do not have enough tupperwares tho for everything so off to Ikea tomorrow to buy 18 packs of tupperwares!. Then off to my Ma`s cos my dad is coming home. He has still got 2 legs but has to now wait until they get round to operating since the infection is under control. Basically he is now on a waiting list. horrible. All the time as well he is in extreme pain and they still intend to take off the leg. Hopefully before xmas and not during it. He is home tomorrow sometime. By ambulance since cannot get leg plus caliper which holds the bones together into a car! So who know when he will actually get home. In the meantime he is already driving my Ma mad cos he wants to install a gym in the lounge of their flat which is quite a small flat and will ruin the lounge for the future. He has some idea of using a cycling device but since he can only move one leg its all just crazy. And very expensive but my dad as usual is completely impractical. I can see arguements as soon as he is settled so am off round there to mediate!

Sally became ill with an infection of the liver just after my last blog. First she got sour crop, then violent diahorea and followed by jaundice around her eyes if you turned her upside down the skin round her rear was yellow. I took her to the vet after her weight had dropped to 1.2kg. Vet reckoned she had a 50:50 chance and was probably over the worst and if she lived the next two days could be ok. That was the middle of September. Now its November and she is still here. Its been about 7 weeks since she came in and amazingly she has recovered from a liver infection which sent her skin and eye lids bright yellow. She also went down to 900g and is now back to 1800g so doing ok. Still not the 3kg she should be but given a week to integrate she should I reckon be able to stand up to the rest of the flock and move back into the hen house. None of them have so far reached the 3kg mark anyway despite me trying to get weight on them. All are around 2.5kg. She is still in the house in a rabbit cage and ventures into the garden regularly. Between eating tons of food,she keeps moaning at me to let her out and then when she has had enough she sits on the kitchen door step waiting for me to let her in just like a cat or dog. None of the others have done this when they have been ill. She seems to have no desire to return to the flock and avoids the aviary. I am going to seperate the run temporarily so she can be with them but not let them attack her. Brilliant tho cos I get my kitchen space back again at last. At least till another one gets ill. I will have to ring the vet and let her know she has got this far since most vets would have just put her down but I asked them to give her a chance (since the liver does heal) and it looks like it was worth the hassle it has been.
Now I am going to spend the next 6 days ( weekdays that is) writing my book. Then I will have another event as small animal sanctuary xmas thing on 20th and then Viva on 26th and that is it till xmas is done. Terrible year this one for me/my business and no events in December other than the usual small kings heath animal free xmas fair which is on 17th december so if like last year we may end up getting snowed in! hey it was a good one tho. Hopefully by January next year the book will finally be finished and then I can start to aproach publishers and hopefully get it into print and I can be a real author at last and get my book out there where it is possibly the only one of its kind so I will not write too much here about it.


WALTER PIGEON UPDATE
Well for ages I had thought Walter our free flying pigeon had gone since she was not around then 15th September she turned up with her mate and two baby pigeons. They were feeding the babies on our fence. Sadly I was not fast enough with teh camera being amazed at the sight before me but I did take some photos a few days later when the parents were trying to get them weaned:





We finally took the abestos off the out-house roof and let the council know we needed to dispose of it. My permit has come from the waste transfer site at last so I can get rid it. Trouble is have spent the £50 we need to pay them. Still I will work something out. Wonder if they take credit cards? I will have to ring and ask and if yes get rid of the nasty stuff once and for all. We had on disposable suits and masks etc when we removed it and one lot of neighbours sensibly shut the windows and went inside but the other side sat out in the garden drinking tea and watched us. Well I know its the least dangerous sort of asbestos but how silly are they really! I always knew they are nosey but that is just stupid. They have exposed themselves to asbestos dust! I bought spanish slate tiles which my lovely Mick will put on eventually on the new roof. Trouble is he has again had loads of back pain so who knows when we will be warm this winter. If it comes to it I will have to try and do it myself but I am really not at all sure what I am doing when tiling roofs. Not quite like tiling a wall methinks! One day the house will be finished and not too long in the future I reckon. I have even started to wallpaper the bedroom. I found some paper for £2.50 a roll reduced in B&Q and its really quite nice. Juniper berries and greenery and makes a good bedroom wallpaper. Except I have possibly bought double what we needed since never having papered that room before had to estimate and have trashed only one bit so far. Since half the room is done with 3 rolls and still have 9 rolls left have somewhat of an excess. I could take it back since you have 90 days to do so but am considering doing teh spare room in teh same paper. After all we are not moving anytime soon and will change the main bedroom in probably about 5 years anyway so it would be a cheap way to finish the house and does it really matter if you have 2 bedrooms with the same paper?