We made sloe gin. After harvesting the sloes I can quite see how Colleen’s son mistook them for Blueberries as they are a superb shade of blue and the bloom on them is quite similar.

We used this recipe and I especially enjoyed pouring the sugar in through a makeshift paper funnel. The sound of this task was fantastic, as was the murky white light display in the glass bottle.

I enjoyed rather less the task of pricking all the sloes individually with a pin, but – if memory serves me correctly – it does help the juices to seep flavoursomely into the gin!

In other happy news, the kitchen is now filled with the gentle glug-glug sound of Cider fermenting contentedly over in the warm corner.

…and the rhubarb gin we made last year turned into something so drinkable that between socialising last night and sending Emmylou home with a small bottle of the stuff, we have drunk it all.

It is not as good as sloe gin and tastes better if left for about a year, but it has a nice, fragrant flavour and tastes best with a little tonic water.

I am hoping that all the joyous Cider fermentation in the corner will have a positive effect on my somewhat lagging sourdough starter. I confess I was a slatternly mother to this small puddle of yeasty life as I failed to feed it every single week. It appears to be lacklustre in its leavening powers and somewhat fatigued. A warm corner, plus some extra special flour and the effervescent presence of the Cider will – I hope – restore its former mojo and give it the Vavavoom it had back in the glory days. I’m sure the cold doesn’t help.

Finally, Mark has harvested all his beans and we are saving them to plant again next year. They are a Berkshire-specific variety of runnerbean. Scooping the pleasingly hard little beans out of the silky, dried husks provided a very happy half an hour’s amusement and those bean pods sound fantastic.

I have put them in a jar, saved to plant next year.

I hope you too are all having a lovely weekend.