Headlessness

Elderflower cordial

I made half a gallon of elderflower cordial over the weekend. It amazed me how simple it was; I found a recipe on some random blog (curious little place: http://www.pastymuncher.co.uk/) and after cross-referencing it against a few other recipes as a sanity-check, I took the plunge and went or it.

Recipe for elderflower cordial

• 3 pints of cold water
• 20 - 30 elderflower heads
• 2 lemons (thinly sliced)
• 50g citric acid
• 2.5 lb sugar

Method: Mix all ingredients in a bucket or stainless steel saucepan and leave for 24 - 48 hours.

I took a stroll down the lane near my house and found half a dozen elder trees; one was really mature and huge (I could only reach the lower-most flowers), four were quite young and only about 6ft tall, and one was a mediumish size. I tried to harvest the larger flowers and so mostly took them from the larger two trees.

Returning home with a basket of elderflowers, I cut the lemons and weighed everything out (I had some citric acid left-over from a bath bomb making experiment I tried).

I left it over night and this afternoon I sieved it and strained it through some muslin to get the finest bits out.

The results were great! I diluted some down and tried it, but it was too strong - you need so little, so I watered it down and tried again. It was similar to the Bottlegreen elderflower cordial but more “flowery”. I can’t really describe it, but if flowers had a generic taste, this had it.

So there you go, elderflower cordial in a nutshell. Easy and delicious.

The great holiday debate

Off the back of the hire car shortages we had a bit of a debate last night over the planned trip to France. M and C were of the opinion that we should splash out a little more an go to Australia. Maybe catch flights to Sydney and explore the South or East coast of Oz. L and I put across the objection that Australia would be in mid-winter in August and it is more of a winter getaway. M & C were having none of it.

I think the extra expense of Australia far outweighs the additional price of car hire in France. We should probably talk about it without a few glasses of rosé next time.

Finger monkey

What’s wrong with the monkey? It’s a lovely monkey - what’s he doing in goal?

(I love The IT Crowd)

He (she?) is so incredibly cute.

/melt

This doesn’t bode well for the summer hols

I was looking forward to exploring the the south of France this summer with a few friends. This might be tempered somewhat by a shortage in hire cars and rising car hire prices. I just read an article (http://bit.ly/bX5Dyz) about how there is a shortage of cars, especially around the Med and the demand is driving prices up (by up to 250%).

We were planning on taking a hire car at Nice and taking a few weeks to drive West to Toulouse, before flying back from Carcassonne. I suppose we still can, but we might have to cut costs on hotels if the car is pricey.

Sigh. Back to work.

Blugh, so tired.

When did I start needing so much sleep? Gone are the halcyon days of youth where four or five hours a night was enough.