Autumn

by Arlene

It has been a really busy few months.

Emily has moved back to Edinburgh (securing rented accommodation virtually isn’t easy), Amy has started secondary school, and I have started a new set of treatment, began to grow hair and became a part time student.

All interesting, but none of those things are the purpose of this blog. Really this is just a blog to tell you about how much I love Autumn. I love the colours, the little bit of cold in the mornings, the final harvest of all the fruit and vegetables, the darker nights which mean that you get to close the curtains and watch TV or read a book without feeling like you should be doing something. It’s all great.

It must be something to do with those darker nights, and the action of putting the garden to bed for the winter, that means that I have been spending most of my spare time turning everything I can get my hands on into jam, preserves, chutney or wine. Anything that isn’t preserved is getting dried for tea. I’m clearly stocking up for winter, provided the winter I’m planning on having is spent drinking tea, getting drunk, and eating toast and jam. Actually that sounds great. I’m going to do that.

I’ve been enjoying myself. I’ve made strawberry, raspberry, bramble and mixed fruit jams, hawthorn jelly, spiced apple chutney, tomato chutney, ginger syrup, rosehip syrup, garden fruit wine, rosehip and hawthorn wine, rhubarb wine, and mead.

Mainly, I’ve created a problem with space. Where am I going to store it all? I don’t know. I’ll find somewhere, it’s fun making it, so I’m not planning on stopping, but I may need to have a serious kitchen clear out and reorganisation.