Monday, 26 September 2011

I'll be knitting my own yogurt next

The weekend was lovely in a bittersweet sort of way. My brother and his wife and children are home on a visit from Australia (we still think of the UK as "home" for them, even though they have been Aussie residents for 2 years now). They all came down to the Corbies on Saturday and although Brother and Sister-inLaw had to scoot off early to go socialising with friends in Glasgow, my niece and nephew stayed the night with us along with my parents.

This meant the 4 cousins could run as a feral pack for a few hours. My nephew in particular idolises First Born (they are very alike, both on the same wavelength that few other mortals can tune into) and FB for his part does not object to a little bit of hero worship coming his way. And who wouldn't enjoy a session of chucking boomerangs across the fields of the Borders?

The bittersweet part was that on Sunday morning, the cousins had to leave and my nephew had to be more or less peeled away from FB, such was his resistance to leaving. They will be back off to Sydney in a few days and we have no idea when we will see them again in the flesh. Skype is a wonderful invention, but it is no substitute for actually having your family around your dinner table, choking on their food from laughing so much. Also, Skype does not quite convey the extent to which my eight-year old niece sounds like Danni Minogue now.

We cheered ourselves up by collecting a huge bag of elderberries from the trees around our garden. Then, back in Edinburgh, Second Born, Husband and I spent quite a wee while in our garden teasing the berries off the stalks (getting very crimson fingers in the process). We ended up with quite a haul
which I then turned into this

Tastes pretty good mixed with lemonade and, according to Husband, even better with the addition of crushed ice and a dash of rum! Next step is an attempt at making apple chutney of some sort as I am in possession of a big bag of apples from a friend's trees. I have never made chutney before but am willing to have a go. Anyone have any good recipes they would like to share?
Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. Maribeth26 September 2011 at 23:31

    My family is so small,and we all live within 5 hours of each other. I do have friends, like sister who live very far off and that is so hard.
    Can you make jelly with the elderberries?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pam 27 September 2011 at 11:05

    Well, you know I sympathise with the departing family thing. Hmmm.

    I'm so impressed with your domestic goddessy tendencies. But no, I don't do chutney. Plant identification, yes. I'll check out that they're really apples if you like.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cassi28 September 2011 at 22:39

    I just love the title of this post. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. alison30 September 2011 at 16:35

    I can't hear (or read) the word 'elderberries' without immediately hearing it in my head spoken in a horrible French accent. Thank you, Monty Python.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)