Marmalade Making!

After the washing machine man had been and fixed my machine (£40) I had designated today as 'Marmalade Making Day'!
So are you ready? Here we go.........................

Gather all your ingredients



Wash the oranges and lemons!



no I didn't really use soapy water, I'm just checking your paying attention!!!!
Squeeze the oranges amd lemons, keep all the pips and pith to put into a muslin bag which will go into the marmalade mixture whilst cooking, this has pectin in it which helps the marmalade set!.



Now chop finely or mince the skins of the oranges and lemons. I am mincing with my £10 bargain buy mincer (including postage) from Ebay!! The suction thing isn't to good but it does an excellent job and definately speeds the whole process up.



Plonk everything except the sugar in a pan!



Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 hours, reducing the liquid by half, add the sugar.



bring back to the boil and boil vigourously until setting point, I use a thermometer for this, skim off the skum which I am in the middle of doing,cos I forgot to take a picture!! (silly me)



Pour into jars



and now for a close up



So would I make it again? Definately! The first part with the oranges and lemons takes about 1 hour, but I would imagine you could use a food processor which would speed everything up. You then have at least 2 hours if not more, in the middle whilst it boils to get on and do something else. Then reaching setting point and into jars!! Easy!!!!

Stumped! Snow and Surprises!!!

Well there I was all geared to do some crafting with the grey jumper from yesterday, when the washing machine packed up!! I am now Stumped!!! Fills and empties, just doesn't go round and round!! Mind you I have this wonderful man who can fix it(I hope) I have had it for years and he repairs and repairs, so lets hope he can work his magic tomorrow hey!!
In the meantime I have to dry an extremely soggy jumper, some how!!!

Heres Tango sneaking along the desk to see if he can help!!!



I am really sorry but I just have to post some of my snow pictures!!!!









I have taken loads, I was hoping I might get one good enough to make our Christmas card later this year, but I'm not sure!! I can't go out again as the snow has nearly all gone becuase it has been raining!!!!

The postie has been and look what he brought me........



Should have cost me £33.96 plus postage, but I got them all for £11.48 including postage!!!!!! The Grow Your Own Veg book was £4.99. The other books are for Madison, my Great Neice. Have you read the 'Hairy Maclary' books, they are great my children loved them. You need to read them with a Scottish accent though!!! Anyway if you would like to see where I bagged this bargain look here

Finally ssshhhhh!! be very quiet and look carefully, now whats going on here?? Whose that with the curly hair and bow?



Thats strange, normally when I get the camera out he rushes off to try and catch me out! So tell me who is this Darius?



Oh I see its Grandma Darkwood and she is not very good at rushing??



well in that case I will leave you both in peace!

Now wasn't that a nice surprise reader!!!!! LOL!!!!!

Few words lots of Pics!!

An odd egg!












We have a chicken which lays soft shelled eggs. I don't know which one of them it is. This is the oddest egg I have seen cos, it has a little tail. Looks a bit like the skin of a sausage!!!

We got some chicken netting today through the post,


I am determined to have some flower beds this year!!

I bought this in a charity shop for £5, it is Lambswool, and I have no intention of wearing it!!!



I shall be making something with it!!! I know its a boring colour but I have to practise on something!!!!!

The Great Pip Challenge!

Is storming along........... my ginger.....











and two out of the three dates, these are still in the propagator but will come out in the next couple of days!!













and finally I sowed the seed of all of these on the 1 st Feb and popped them in my bargain heated propagator



all except the Verbena & Sensitive plant have come through, so we are well on out way to a beautiful garden!!! LOL!!!

Added at 14.42 my flipping washing machine has just packed up!!!!!!!!

I am here!! Motivation at zero though!!

Some of you may know, some may not that Tori has Aspergers Syndrome! I'm not sure the outside agencies have any idea what we go through at home.
I won't say what exactly happened on Sunday just that she ran away Sunday afternoon wearing just jeans and a t-shirt! Bearing in mind how cold it was, we gave her an hour, thinking she would just stomp round the village. But she didn't!! So Mark & I went out looking leaving our wonderful neighbour to hold the fort in case she came back! Anyway to cut a long story short after 2 hours we still hadn't found her, but she had heard me calling and she made her way home!! She was purple and had been sat on some logs in a field about 500yds away from home!
Now everything is fine, all sorted and more or less back to what it was. But this has really affected me badly!! I am struggling but who doesn't, keep putting one foot infront of the other and see what happens!!!

I started having my hair coloured about October last year, as the grey was getting to me!! I had like a grey hairband effect! Anyway I went to the hairdressers to have an all over touch up on Friday and it looks like I have gone totally white!!!!!!!! I wonder if it is because of the operations and stress I have been through the last 6 months!!!

My good deed for the day!!!! (Maybe the week!!!)
My friend who has MS, well her tramper packed up last week. This is her Tramper..



its like a fourwheel drive invalid carriage and allows outdoor people to carry on with outdoor actvities even though they may have disabilities!
So for some unknown reason the engineer wouldn't/couldn't come to her so we went to them. It has its own trailer so we loaded it up, 100 miles round trip, 1 hour wait, £25 bill, and it is now working and back at home! She is happy now because she is house bound without it. She has horses, chickens, sheep and a dog which she still helps look after, with believe it or not a very little amount of support! I admire her guts she has so much strength!!

Now I need to do something to get me going again, so look what arrived in the post today



My £10 including postage, mincer from Ebay!!! So I think I will do some Marmalading!!!! Well not exactly now, maybe tomorrow or the next day!!

Really, really tired today!!

May not post again today sorry. We had a rather traumatic day yesterday with Tori!! Which is now all sorted (I hope!) Then I woke about 03.30 and hubby was snoring his head off and I just haven't been back to sleep since!! So will see hubby off to work, take Tori to school then come home and go back to bed!!!! I have a meeting with the school at 15.00 so have to be up to speed by then!!!