It's that Time of Year

It is so long since I made jam or marmalade that my jam pan has been lost to antiquity and I had to borrow a pan from my friend o.m.ts.
The first time I made marmalade was 50 years ago as a very new bride and I made the mistake of using a pan several sizes too small with the inevitable result. We were cleaning marmalade off the cooker for many days.

Then there was the foray into bramble jelly making when, with daughter#1 about to make an entrance into the world and no time to buy the proper jelly bag, I had to hijack a new muslin nappy tied to an upturned stool.

There were many more jam making sessions with raspberries and strawberries, a successful outcome made more certain by the additional of commercial Certo, a pectin product that ensured a setting.
So many times in my childhood have I seen my mother with perhaps 12 jars of strawberry jam failing to gel and having to tip everything back into the pan and reboil with added lemon juice. Often then it might become too stiff. It was an annual vexation.There was never any thought back then of buying jam from a shop.

Now as I blip my 8 jars of marmalade cooling on the kitchen top, I feel a sudden glow of domestic bonhomie - my man will have homemade marmalade on his toast of a morning.
Too bad that he doesn't have toast in the morning and despite coming from Dundee, the marmalade capital of Scotland, hardly ever eats the stuff; it will be all the more for me.