Marmalade is made, spring must be here!

Warwick's Seville Orange Marmalade

The distinctive smell of marmalade oranges being prepped for this year’s batch of marmalade was a smell reminiscent from childhood. Seville oranges are available for such a short time. So when they arrived in the kitchen it was always all hands to the wheel. There were usually only one pair available and they were my mother’s.  We were never allowed to sample the current year’s batch until all of last year’s production had been taken down from the top of the wardrobe in my bedroom and eaten.

Since we returned to Ireland, making marmalade in Mornington had become a shared job / chore, but in recent years Hubbie Warwick has taken over completely, until this year when I was allowed to watch the final set!!! The result is a vintage batch , great flavour, good rich colour and  consistency.

Snowdrops, donkeys and spring cleaning.

Snowdrops breakthrough

The appearance of the first snowdrops on 17th January gave the spirits a lift , after the horrors of sub zero temperatures around Christmas. Frozen pipes meant a lack of water where it was needed; namely in the kitchen and shower and too much water where it certainly wasn’t needed. Leaks have been repaired, damaged carpets removed and now we are sorting out the old servant’s hall aka ‘the playroom’.

My plan is that it will become ‘the garden room’, primarily since it has direct access to the garden. After the changeable years we have had the past two years I need a workroom where I can ‘prick out young plants’, ‘pot on’, take cuttings, etc., etc. The challenge will be to create direct access for my scooter. as the garden is at least a metre higher than the door sill. I believe that a certain amount of earth moving will be involved. We shall see!

Woolly donkeys enjoying the spring sunshine

Holly, Molly and Noddy appear from nowhere. They will pose for a photograph but take off when they hear the shutter click. Always nosing in my scooter basket.

I digress. Today has been a day for ‘sorting’.  Re-use, recycle or throw out.  Can you compost ‘old’ computers, etc.?