Red rose

Today's blip is a rose in my mother-in-law's garden. It was a bit cooler and overcast today, so the dog was happier on his run, but the light was failing when I blipped this rose.

I did another batch of jam today, another 2 kg of mirabelle plums were processed. Even though I was aware that yesterday's batch were a little runny and I added less water than was required today and boiled it good and hard today and minimised the stirring (just enough to avoid it sticking) it was still a little runny. Plums normally have a lot of pectin in them and can set too hard - but as they ripen the pectin levels fall and clearly it has fallen very low in these.

My wife and the garden group collected another 20 kg of plums from the tree during the day. I don't have to jam that lot thankfully - it takes time and care to produce good jam and I don't have that much time. At least my wife did a lot of the fruit preparation for me - as that can be a time consuming and sticky job...

We now have 21 jars of mirabelle jam in the cupboard. I made a 16 jars of Apricot jam a few weeks ago, and before that a small batch of rhubarb and ginger. If the year is good I hope to make some black grape jelly at the end of August from some vines which have escaped from a local vineyard!

Work is suddenly quiet, so I'm picking up other tasks while doing as much documentation as I can in the lull. Strange going from 110% to 0% overnight, it's hard to adapt. Soon I'll be back at around 100% again.