Sunday 23 January 2011

The snowdrops are coming!

The first snowdrops are appearing now to be rapidly followed by crocus and the daffodils. Another cold winter should mean that the bulbs appear in their proper order again. Spring is a geat time to visit us at Harptree as the quarter mile drive looks at its best from now to the spring.

Monday 17 January 2011

Marmalade War

The box of Seville oranges arrived last week and have spent a few days in the fridge while I gird myself up for marmalade making. We split the box with a friend, who has been making marmalade for many years and start slicing.


Linda, who is an excellent cook but who has no patience soon abandons the kitchen to me, I fill the house with the sweet sticky smell of marmalade as I struggle with 8 double batches using Gary Rhodes' recipe (about 20kg in all)

After a day and a half I end up with what I hope is a years supply of homemade marmalade. We do try to serve only homemade preserves at breakfast.!


I notice that this year the colour is lighter than last, a real golden glowing orange; I worry slightly and pop round to Diana's to see how she is doing.
Her marmalade is exactly the same colour so I haven't done anything wrong and better still she is only half way through her oranges so this year I'm claiming victory in the undeclared marmalade war.

Monday 10 January 2011

Treehouse starts at last!

Whoppee! After about a year of delays I can hardly believe that work is actually beginning on the treehouse.

Step 1 is to remove some sycamore trees and laurel to make room for the structure whilst retaining everything else so that the treehouse floats amongst the trees. We used Adam Clark for all the high tree work.

Before
After

Thre isn't much more to see yet but over the next 3-4 weeks we should get up to Platform height, I can't wait....