World of more

I made cider.  Lots of cider.  With a few bushels from our own apple trees generously augmented by Jonesy I’ve made about 70 litres of the stuff.  Bottles now fill the wine racks in the garage. It turns out that it’s remarkably simple, and as Jones himself said, you can’t really fuck it up.  Here’s how to make cider: Pick apples Mash ‘em up a bit Squash ‘em a lot Put some yeast in Leave for a bit Bottle Drink And now I have so much free and delicious booze that it is merely a question of will and desire as to when and whether I have a glass.  Time will tell how that particular equation resolves.

Seb has submitted  our plans  to the might of the council for approval.  The presence of a planning notice on our front gate post rather wrong-footed us, as we hadn’t told the neighbours to expect it.  One or two fairly hasty visits to slightly worried looking neighbours later and all seems smoothed over (although comments are still open so who knows what will come).  And who can blame them, the new people in the village suddenly submitting a planning application, which could have been anything from adding an unsightly extension to knocking it all down and starting again. In fact though, we’re making such minor changes to the house’s appearance that the only reason we need to get planning permission is because the insulation we are adding will increase the apparent size of the house by approx 10cm on three walls, which means that on balance the council would like our planning fees. As that is what we have decided, despite my imagining all summer a completely different ...