Christmas Cake

We started soaking the fruit for our Christmas cake earlier in the week, and it was ready, this morning, to make the cake. Last year, we used Mary Berry's recipe, instead of the Delia Smith recipe we've used for many (nine, I think) years. We've tweaked it slightly.

Dried fruit:

• 6oz glace cherries
• 1lb 2oz currants
• 7oz raisins
• 12oz sultanas
• 2oz mixed peel

Soaked with 150–200ml strong tea for three days.

• 9oz butter
• 9oz light sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1tbsp treacle
• 4oz flaked almonds
• 3tbsp marmalade

All beaten together, before folding in:

• 9oz plain flour
• 1tsp mixed spice
• 1/2tsp cinnamon
• pinch salt

The fruit is then stirred in, before it's spooned into a 9", double lined and greased tin. It cooked for 4:45, at 140°, covered from the start with a greaseproof paper lid.

Solid Door

Yesterday, we spent a bit of time getting on with the 'left behind' insulation in the kitchen and sitting room. In the former, there's a patch of wall near the old front door, which is partly an internal wall (dividing kitchen from sitting room), partly a cross-section through the old cottage wall, and partly a cavity'ed external wall (part of the kitchen extension from 30–40 years ago). In previous years, it's suffered from condensation, and been quite cold, although it's not a proper solid external wall, so we thought it worthwhile insulating it. It's been left to do, though, as it's just a single metre width of wall, which we're not insulating to quite the same standard as elsewhere, due to the scale of the problem (limited), the stone arch that's adjacent, and the limited space. The insulation and electrical bit of this is done, and the plasterboard will follow: the stash of plasterboards is currently buried under adopted furniture in the garage, so it has to wait.

We've also put up the roller blinds we ordered: new, more durable ones for the kitchen, matching ones for the bathroom windows, and a very wide, insulated blind for the patio doors. That also required us to get round to putting back the curtain poles in the kitchen, and to hang the curtains, which are now back up, which is good.

Today—a short day because Cath and Jason came round for dinner—we've replaced the utility room door with a new one. The old one was, bizarrely for an external door, a hollow-core door, which was neither secure nor warm, so we've replaced it with a solid wood door. The hollow-core door will serve in the short term as a bathroom door upstairs: we hope to replace all the first floor doors with attractive natural wood doors in a few years.

The solid wood door came blank, so it took me a while to mount the hinges, cut the recess and holes for the handle and lock mechanism, and re-mount the rack bolts, as well as hang it. Fortunately, the size was off-the-shelf, so I haven't had to trim it down, which would have been fraught with peril.

Finishing the Kitchen

A busy day, today, finishing the kitchen. To start with, we pulled the cooker and two side units out of the cooker alcove (the old fireplace), and stripped that wall to stone, as well as the small bit of external wall near the deprecated front door.

We then had to work quickly to get the cooker's wall insulated (with some difficulty getting the foil behind the pipework near the floor!), before our helpers turned up: Philip and Clara came down to help get everything back into the kitchen. Clara was particularly useful, cleaning the cupboards before things went back in.

Meanwhile, I went back to the dining room, which we started some weeks ago, with an unexpectedly free afternoon after the last houseparty. Once the kitchen was re-stocked, Liz joined me, and we've finished insulating the front wall of the dining room, as well as replacing the windowboards on the back of the sitting room, and the front of the dining room. We need more cavity-fill batts/rockwool slabs before we can do any more of these, though.

There's a list of things we want to squeeze in to tomorrow morning, and then we'll hopefully be able to set off for Ludlow shortly after lunch.

Insulating the Kitchen

We've been putting off insulating the kitchen, focussing instead on the other downstairs rooms, until we've had several consecutive days to work on it. There are a number of reasons why, although it's a smaller area of wall than, say, the sitting room, it was always going to take longer. The kitchen units on the external wall, which include the sinks and the water heater (that is: lots of plumbing and electrics) all needed moving; so did the little units to either side of the cooker; the pantry is fiddly (the shelves are, for various reasons, basically un-removeable), and so it was always going to take several days. If it weren't the kitchen, that wouldn't be so bad, but we really couldn't face doing the work over two weekends, and being without use of the kitchen for nine days.

And that's assuming it all went to plan.

So, instead, we've waited until this weekend, which comes at the start of a week off. We only have four days, as on Wednesday we're travelling down to Ludlow, ahead of Katie's wedding on Thursday. Hopefully, though, four days are enough.

It took a long time to get the units removed (inevitably, they weren't installed with ease of removal in mind), but we got them out of the way, and have stripped the wall back and insulated it. Unlike in the other rooms, we've done the window reveals and boards as we've gone.

Tonight's gone on rather, but we've probably broken the back of it.

Easter Weekend

We've had a difficult week, with lots of snow remaining: that's made for long journeys to and from work, for one thing. There's still a lot left, and there's no way we could have been working in the garden, so we've had Easter weekend off. Well, inside. We've done a lot of baking, and entertained children a bit.

As we're on leave this coming week, though, I'm hoping we'll get some things done over the coming days. Until then, you'll find me in front of the stove, eating walnut and Stilton bread, and hot cross buns. They're very tasty, and if I finish marzipanning the Simnel cake, that'll be next.

Wood and Seeds

We spent Friday splitting and stacking wood, with medium efficacy; Jenny and Philip's current foster children also left, so we spent some time with them. Saturday and today has been more wood; stacking some pre-prepared wood, and sawing/splitting/stacking fresh wood. We're getting the hang of it: today's work was quite effective. We've planted more seeds—so far we've got plenty of leeks, beetroot, beans, peas, and now some celeriac and tomatoes in.

We had a brief interlude mopping up after a leak in the airing cupboard, which came through the kitchen ceiling, too...

Back to work tomorrow!

Cider Press

We've had a really good weekend, with a visit to my parents', time with Liz's, and some sorting at home. Being my birthday, there was also plenty of lovely food, and a few presents. My sister gave me some Nerines (Nerine bowdenii), my parents gave me a foraging book ("The Thrifty Forager" by Alys Fowler) and a bee hotel (which will go up in the copse soon). Liz and her parents joined forces to find me an apple press, which I've wanted for some time. It'll be a useful way of dealing with the apple glut, either as cider, or a bottled and pasteurized juice.

New 12l cider/apple press (© Ian 2012)

A couple of bags of cheap apples were ready for a first try-out: ten apples yielded about 500ml of juice, and very easily. It would actually be easier with more fruit—the pressing plate had to have a lot of spacers on top of it, because ten apples is a very small proportion of the press capacity. That said, the juice itself was delicious. It browned quickly (we hadn't added citric/ascorbic acid to the bucket), but that doesn't affect the flavour.

Roll on autumn!

To-Do List

Several days of working on a to-do list that we'd 'saved' until our holiday...

• The workshop's been tidied up, and I've installed the replacement bolts on the workshop and garage doors.
• We've made another batch of marmalade. This time we used two lemons and four oranges, which came to just under 0.75 pints of juice. You're meant to add 0.75pt of water (and 6lb sugar) to the Marmade tin; I reckon you should make at least two-thirds of this juice (half a pint), and potentially all of it. With this extra pectin, the boiling time was only about 12 minutes (not the 15 the tin calls for). I looks like another good batch!
• Another tree surgeon's been to look at the poplars.
• Our attempt to purchase the hill-side opposite the house has, sadly, come to naught. No great surprise, but we thought we'd enquire!
• It's been raining for about 48 hours, so we've had to put out buckets to catch the drips in Jenny and Philip's conservatory (they're away for another week).
• I've put a ceiling light in the middle of the dining room.
• I've replaced the light switch in the cellar with a waterproof one, as the wall often gets lots of condensation, which didn't feel safe.
• Liz has, with heavy heart, taken down the Christmas decorations.
• We've sorted out the Christmas fabrics (windowsill runners, tablecloths, etc), and finished hemming the tablecloth for the kitchen.
• Crushed and stored a big bunch of applemint that's been drying, ready for making tea.
• Found the divider for the floor between kitchen and utility room, and started thinning it down to fit.

Potatoes and Cat-Doors

On Tuesday, a new cat-flap arrived. We've had some trouble with a local tom (we think) breaking in, terrorising the cats, and stealing food. He, or our two in response, have also been doing some marking, which is fun for no-one. We've looked at cat-flaps which use a magnetic collar to identify the cats and allow the right ones in, but—given that Domino seems to loose collars every six months or so—this didn't seem optimal. However, we have found one that uses the RFID microchips that the cats have implanted to identify them. Once 'learnt', it detects the chips when the cats approach the flap, and allows only our two in. Tail-gating could be a problem, I suppose, but it should reduce the problem. Anyway: the new flap is now installed (very straightforwardly, I should add).

A myriad of tidying and sorting tasks have also been completed, and we also made five litres of carrot soup (from a sack of horse-carrots that were going a bit...wild). Finally, we've put the seed potatoes out into egg cartons to chit, and sown some more seeds (Early Nantes carrots, scarlet kale, peas, Brussels sprouts, celeriac, and ipomoea).

Sadly, we have to go back to work tomorrow, but we managed to finish manuring the beds, by bringing up another 14-odd barrows to finish the second raspberry bed, the 'Q' vegetable bed, and the long vegetable bed. The 'C' bed is going to be roots, so no manure for it. In 2009, when we brought manure up, we had to take a long route round, but this time I removed a couple of fence-planks, so we could bring the barrow to the fence near the kitchen garden, lift it over, and carry on. It's reduced the journey to almost a third, which is vastly better. I've now re-attached the fence planks with screws, so it'll be even easier next time.

Manuring the Beds

We've managed a few hours in the garden, at last. Our neighbour's horse's copious 'production' is piled at the bottom of the field beneath the house, so we've trekked back and forth with the wheelbarrow, collecting manure for the fruit beds. A dozen barrows later (oh, my aching back), the gooseberry/currant/blueberry beds are done, and one raspberry bed. More of this tomorrow morning...

We picked up 80 new gladioli from the garden centre yesterday morning: the 'frost free' location we'd stored the bulbs in after lifting was not, in fact, free from frost over the bitter cold of December (about -10°C, some nights), and the bulbs are almost certainly dead. We also got some P and K fertilizer, and admired the spring hanging baskets: we need to replace our baskets, and plant them up, but their new-season baskets haven't arrived yet. Couple of weeks, hopefully.

Almost Finished

We're very nearly there...the walls are all done, the skirting board has had its second coat, and the windowsills have all been done. The floor needs cleaning, and there are a few bits and pieces, but...

Overcome by the Fumes

The shelves in the pantry, and on the wall, are now a lovely green (matching the cupboard doors). However, working in the confined space of the pantry with the fumes has rather taken a toll on Liz. Fresh air worked wonders, though. We're making good progress, and have turned the walls in the utility room 'Timeless', too. I've painted the spice rack, which will go back on the wall, and the plinths, green, and touched up the oak beams.

Constructing

I've spent rather a large fraction of today making a box. Not just any box, but one that will fit into the recess in front of the 'old' front door in the kitchen. This door, which was solid, was replaced by a half-glazed door last summer. We don't particularly want or need a door in that corner—at least, not most of the time. However, it's the only way to get, for example, a range cooker or sofa into/out of the house, so it was necessary to keep it. As our builder said, one should never block up a door. However, it sits behind the kitchen table, and, because of its inaccessibility, looks rather odd. Hence, the box, which will hopefully make it look more like a window. This was always our intention: it matches the windows, and has pots of plants outside it to 'hide' it.

So, my box. Almost constructed, and needs painting. Meanwhile, Liz has been industriously priming plinths, shelves, pantries, and utility rooms. I think tomorrow we can break out the 'proper' cream and green paints.

Someone Else's DIY

We got back around lunch-time from a weekend in Ludlow, visiting Liz's grandmother. It's always a pleasure visiting her, as a relaxing and undemanding schedule is usually obeyed. Breakfast, coffee/elevenses, lunch, tea, dinner, supper. This appeals enormously. In between, she usually has a list of bits-and-pieces that need doing in the house or garden, preferably by someone younger/stronger/more inclined. It seems a fair trade, to me: food and company, for minor handiwork. I fixed her non-filling water-butt (not, as suggested, a problem with the gutter or diverter, but with the tap, which meant it emptied as quickly as it filled); re-levelled her garden swing-sofa-thing; got the pump in the pond working again; put up a shelf; and installed a solar trickle-charger in her car.

Ludlow's a lovely town to visit, and we had a good wander around the Saturday market and Bread Walk, while we were there.

We're on leave this week, and hope to get the finishing touches in the kitchen done (some of them minor, some less so), as well as a bit of pottering in the house and garden. To that end, we've spent a few hours preparing the way in the kitchen; moving the table out, and things off the shelves and windowsills. We've also taken down the cupboards in the utility room, and removed the washing machine.

Hopefully, by the end of the week, the kitchen will look as it is meant to, and I can soon take and post some before vs. after photos.

Snow!

Saturday morning caught us by surprise, as we hadn't anticipated snowfall: nonetheless, there were a few inches waiting. This rather reduced our enthusiasm for a day outside, which we therefore postponed to today. Saturday then vanished in pottering, tidying, and cleaning, but never mind; at least I got a big (72 rolls) batch of bread made, which should keep us going for two or three weeks.

Today, we've been rather more productive. Although we finished the kitchen curtains some time ago, we didn't make the tie-backs for them (nor are the requisite hooks up, but that's another story). We've started to address this, and have made three pairs, and cut the fabric for a fourth. At the same time, I finished a tablecloth from an off-cut of the curtain fabric, with a cream border to make it large enough. That leaves us with a pair to cut, and two to sew—and curtains and tie-backs for the utility room.

The snow having thawed somewhat, we also ventured outside, to get a few things done. First was pruning the fruit bushes (and a couple of other things), as the currants, gooseberries, and blueberries all needed attention. The acer and buddleja in the front also had a trim, actually. We then sowed some more seeds: peppers, aubergines, leeks, clematis (C. integriflora, a short species), more cauliflowers, carrots and parsnips. Who knows, some may even germinate. Some pyrethrum/chrysanths, which arrived last week, we potted up, too.

It's the time of year when I get excited about buds and shoots. In addition to the daffodils and crocuses which I've incessantly mentioned, the bluebells/scilla/puschkinia are all on their way up, and I've spotted promising buds on the lilac, rose, honeysuckles, rhubarb, fruit bushes, and acer. And some tulips are showing above ground, too. Now, if only I had a bit more time, and it wasn't so cold, I'd spend some more time outside.

The leaky chimney which vexed me a fortnight ago is now hopefully repaired. Our regular builder (he of the kitchen work) popped in on Friday and applied some sort of magic sealant, which should do the job. I suspect another look at it may be on the cards for the summer, but his rates are (very) reasonable, so I'm sanguine for now. There will, no doubt, be enough rain in my immediate future to establish whether it still leaks.

Yoghurt and Patisseries

A few years ago, we tried making yoghurt (using our usual off-the-shelf 'live' yoghurt as a starter). It wasn't very successful, turning out very runny and a bit grainy, although it tasted fine. Having found better instructions, and obtained a thermometer (also useful for wine making), we thought we'd try again.

Accordingly, we mixed 900 ml of whole milk with three tablespoons of milk powder (semi-skimmed); warmed it to 46°C; and stirred in a few tablespoons of live yoghurt. We poured the lot into a pair of half-litre vacuum flasks, and left it until this morning (about 15 hours), when I decanted it into a plastic tub and moved it to the fridge.

The result? Considerably more yoghurt-like. It's a bit gooey, I suppose, and not quite the same consistency as the commercial stuff. However, it tastes good, and, hopefully, is good for us. Certainly it works out cheaper: about 60p per litre, compared to £1.70—though I should add a little bit to that for the gas (negligible, seeing as a whole year of cooking gas is about £45) and milk powder (about 8p per litre, I estimate). Probably about a 55% saving, and that can only be good, especially when combined with the satisfaction of making it.

On the topic of making things, I spent a couple of hours during our last days of holiday (Monday/Tuesday) making a new chopping board. When the kitchen sinks were installed, corresponding pieces of worktop had to be cut out, which I saved. I smoothed (chisel) the sides of the smaller, which was about 40 x 30 cm, and gave it a thorough sand, before applying a couple of coats of oil. It'll need more oil, but it's come up really nicely. Obviously, it perfectly matches the sides, and is a nice size for use (though it's pretty heavy, as the sideboard is a really dense oak).

The larger piece (about 60 x 40 cm) will need slightly more preparation (less neat sides), but I'll try to do the same to it when I can. It will, of course, be even heavier, but a big board will be useful. I should also sand and re-oil our old butchers block, because that's badly worn now, after considerable use.

Next weekend, we have a number of friends coming to stay, for a belated Christmas/New Year get-together. It seemed an ideal opportunity to bake stuff, so we had a try at croissant and Danish pastries. We made a foray into pâtisserie a few years ago, making some croissant from a recipe in my big book of bread. They were very tasty, but—as anyone who's tried them will tell you—a labour of love. The traditional 'construction' recipe has several iterations of folding, butter spreading, and refrigerating to build up the 32 layers of butter and 33 layers of pastry/dough that is considered optimal (a process that always makes me think of Damascus steel, but that's my metallurgy background for you). This takes hours, frankly.

However, we—or, I should say, Liz's dad—came across a far better way of making them, which has only a brief refrigeration, one application of butter, and is far more feasible. Basically, after making the dough, and chilling it once, you apply a single slab of butter, and through cunning folding, achieve the 32 layers needed in one session of rolling and folding. No further chilling required. Once the laminated slab is made, it's a 'simple' task to cut into squares, and form into croissant or Danish pastries (we cheated and used the same dough, but encased a blob of marzipan, and adorned with an apricot). We tried one of each, and they're delicious: they'll now be frozen, and brought out for breakfast next Sunday (brief warming through optional, but recommended).

This week, we're having the oil boiler replaced, as the old one has a number of inadequacies, not least that it is non-condensing, and probably about 40% efficient. The new one is a big, high-efficiency condenser (97% nominal efficiency), which should mean less oil use. Unfortunately, this means a couple of days without heating, but the forecast for the week is much less bitter than it has been.

Cider

After a very pleasant couple of days off, we had a more 'productive' day, tidying the study. Which I shall elaborate upon no further, as it wasn't that enthralling.

Instead: an excellent Christmas day, with very successful cooking. Amusingly, the day started with Liz asking what would happen if the gas ran out while cooking (propane cylinders outside feed the cooker, as we're not on the national gas network). Low-and-behold, the gas ran out while cooking lunch. A quick trip to fetch a spare, and hook it up solved the problem. The one that ran out was hooked up on 22nd December 2009, so the cylinder has lasted a tiny bit over a year. I reckon this one won't make it quite as far—we had a two-week cooking hiatus while the kitchen was being 'done', and with a stove-top kettle now in use, we'll burn it faster. Still, that should mean no repeat of this morning's hilarity. I shall now promptly order a replacement, so we maintain a back-up.

In addition to some cat-featuring coasters and table mats (Cats In Waiting from Ulster Weavers, and 'Ottoline' mats from the British Museum), a Paper Potter that I've had my eye on for a while, we received the excellent River Cottage Every Day. We've been watching the series, and the book seems to have all of the recipes, which until now I've had to write out as we went, which is never satisfactory.

Before tackling the study, we also started a cider kit I bought some time ago, but not got round to. It's a simple one: you mix the contents with sugar and water, and leave it to stand until primary fermentation's complete. You then put it into a pressure barrel with some extra sugar (secondary fermentation on this makes it fizz!), and decant as desired.

Pipes, Presents, Preparations and Pins

Mum and dad's visit yesterday went well (just quick, not least because it's snowy and travel's unpleasant); today's social worker visit has been rearranged to the New Year—she's fallen in the snow and aggravated an injury, preventing driving.

The house is now fully decorated, and there's an inordinate amount of greenery through the rooms. Upstairs, as normal, has escaped significant adornment, but there's a lot of holly, ivy, pine, and decorations downstairs. We finished making runners for the windows, too, which all look good, and enliven the sills.

This evening, we've done some of the preparing for the Christmas lunch, making a mango sorbet and chicken liver pâté. The latter, we've made before, very successfully and easily. It's good made in advance, and sealed under butter: once it's started, though, it needs to be eaten quite quickly. Which is fine, admittedly, and never a problem. The sorbet is new to us, and was splendidly simple to create...and will, I hope, taste good.

Unfortunately, the recent cold weather froze the pipes in the roof space above the utility room, and they chose this afternoon to thaw...revealing that both pipes had split. After staunching the flow, I had to reach into the loft, remove the split sections of pipe, and spliced in repairs. The only things I had available were, in fact, stopcocks, which aren't quite normal, but function well as over-specified straight connectors. This being a one-man job (the hatch to the space is a foot square, and one can't climb in), I left Liz wrapping the Christmas presents, and at least the tree now looks complete. Extra lagging is on order for the pipes: while I was up there, I've also installed loft insulation, as there was a minimum already in place.

Curtains

Finally, we got on with making curtains for the kitchen. Liz had started on of them, to check how it was going to work, a while ago, but we've spent the weekend working on the set. There are five windows in the dining room, which are all now finished (bearing some tweaking of the gathers). Unfortunately, we didn't quite get to the matching pair for the utility room, but never mind. The kitchen looks much better with curtains that are the right length, and all the same...

It's snowed again, too, and the track is not pleasant. We're not due more snow until Thursday, probably, but it's cold enough that what we have will almost certainly remain.

Of course, the curtains pretty much entirely occupied the weekend, so we've not got anything else to speak of done. It's a bit of a busy week ahead, predictably: we're at work Monday and Tuesday, then have visitors on Wednesday, a social worker coming on Thursday, and then preparations for Christmas Day (we're cooking the dinner...) will probably take up Friday!

Now: where did I put the wrapping paper?

Decorating

It's been a successful weekend, all in all. I've trimmed the new kitchen plinths to length, and then cut them to the right height (complicated by the non-parallel gap): I've put some 'loft' insulation behind the plinth on the sink units, as these (against the outside wall) get very cold, and essentially cause a draught. I've sorted out a join in the skirting board that was bothering me. I cut and installed a replacement end-panel (on the end of the units near the door to the sitting room: the original was veneered MDF, which I didn't like) out of pine-board, and trimmed & installed the filler panel on right-hand end of the other run. The 'spare' cupboard is now in the utility room (very useful); and, lastly, I've put up a high shelf where we took one down (above the units that include the fridge).

Having managed that, we put up a few hooks and nails, so some pictures, etc, are now hung, and the kitchen looks altogether more finished.

We've constructed a (frankly) huge swag from conifer and holly foliage, to go above the sitting room fire, and threaded some lights through it. It might be a little too large, really, but it looks good. The Christmas tree is in place (but unlit or decorated), and we've strung up holly boughs and branches around the sitting room and dining room. Starting to look the part! The rest of the decorations will have to wait.

As it was Liz's birthday, we had today off work, and popped over to Leeds' Christmas Market (good fun; some nice stalls, and we'll probably go again next year), before spending the evening with her parents. She's got some really nice gifts, including a tasteful pair of hand-knitted gloves, a very pretty embroidered table runner, and the Le Creuset stove-top kettle she's been coveting.

We also made our Christmas cake (yes, a bit late): more on that next time.

A pleasant weekend, although the snow's getting a bit much: here's a vote for a bit of a thaw...