Rhubarb cordial

I have seen variations of this on several blogs recently, so thought I'd give it a go.  Delicious.

Wash rhubarb (this is from my allotment)

Chop into smallish pieces - I enlisted the help of the girls with this

Weigh, and for every 100g add about 10ml of water

Cook gently until the rhubarb has broken down and released all it's pink loveliness

Strain off juice - do you like my high-tech solution to suspending the jelly bag?

Put the juice in a pan and add sugar.  For every 100ml of juice I added about 80g of sugar.  This is a bit of a guess and really depends on how sweet you want the cordial to be

Disolve over a low heat, then decant into a sterlised bottle

We dilute with sparkling water, lemonade is also good, but sweeter and I'm sure that it would go well with cava too

Enjoy!

NB: I have frozen the left-over rhubarb pulp and intend to make it into a rhubarb cake.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Iceberg

I never understood the appeal of roses, although my mother always has them in her garden and they look lovely.  It wasn't until I visited Chelsea Flower Show about four years ago that I really 'got' them.  At the moment I only have one in the garden, but plan to add many more.

This year my Iceberg climbing rose is beautiful



Nearly all the buds have opened over the last few days

They are so pretty ...........

....... and have really brightened up a dark corner of my garden

 

and when the petals fall, they look like confetti!

Is there a 'B' in boxers?

I love the smell of line-dried washing, so if its not actually raining then my washing goes on the line.  Today, I brought the dry washing in and threw it all on my bed ready to be sorted and folded.  

I could hear a loud buzzing, which stopped as I started to fold ..... as soon as I picked up the next item for folding, it started again.  After prudent sorting, I narrowed it down to a pair of stripey boxer shorts belonging to my husband.  I carried them to the window and shook them with care!  Out flew a large, cross wasp. 

Oh dear, could have caused a nasty swelling .......

NB: I don't usually take photos of my husbands underwear, or anyone else's for that matter. 

And in the beginning ....

I often spend the evenings reading my favourite blogs, and quoting bits and pieces to the family. This prompted my children to suggest that I write a blog to capture all the little things we do ......

I am planning to update at least once a week, with snippets of our family life:

What we do in our spare time;

What we grow;

I can't take the credit for the bananas, but all the rest came from my allotment last year.

And especially what we like to eat;

 

I hope you enjoy reading our online diary.