Elderberry Wine - Second Bottle (A6), 27th-29th November 2015

This was our final Thanksgiving bottle, opened on the Friday when we were entertaining Sooz, Andrew, Rachel & Duncan. To be honest, good as the wine was (and it is a fine vintage of elderberry wine, full of rich and dark flavours) it was a bottle too far. We drank half of it and I then spent a teetotal Saturday. This Saturday mostly involved the WYSO winter concert with Tchaikovsky's scary Fourth Symphony. My lip survived and I was moderately pleased with my solos.

Claire and I finished the bottle on Sunday after a day clearing the attic - a long job made all the less tedious by Rachel & Duncan forming an industrious chain.

A small proportion of the attic to clear

Rose Petal Wine - Sixth Bottle (A3), 27th November 2015

Rachel and Duncan came for Thanksgiving II, which meant a bottle of rose petal wine was virtually obligatory. It is Rachel's favourite, and its sweet, perfumed taste went particularly well with the sweet potato, mashed with chilli and lime.

Earlier in the day the House came on in leaps and bounds. The kitchen is now fitted (though there is no electricity yet) and Andrew and I laid carpets. Both of these transform the place. Rather than looking like a building site, it now looks like a home. This is a good thing because we will be living there in less than a week.

Blackcurrant Wine - Eighth Bottle (A1), 26th-27th November 2015

I opened this for our final bottle of Thanksgiving, and we finished it during Thanksgiving II. This year I bought a fairly small turkey (5.2 kg) and it did for two meals - thirteen hungry adults, of whom only one was a vegetarian. The leftovers are scant but not non-existent. I certainly enjoyed the blackcurrant wine (perhaps a little too much - I drank nothing alcoholic on Saturday) but I did not gauge anyone else's reaction. This suggests they enjoyed it.

Dandelion Wine - Second Bottle (6), 26th November 2015

What could possibly say 'Thanksgiving' more than a bottle of homemade Dandelion Wine? This was our first bottle of the evening after a round of whisky macs, and everyone thought it a 'Hit'. It is very reminiscent of sherry, though sherry with a touch of vegetable, and I was told that even Claire's grandmother might have approved. It being Thanksgiving we had a couple of Americans over - Linda and Rory, plus Richard (of course), Andrew and Sooz. It was a lovely evening with too much food and lots of good conversation. And Linda's pumpkin pie was the best I think she has ever done.

Orange Wine - Eighth Bottle (A3), 25th November 2015

I committed an act of moral repugnancy while drinking this bottle of orange wine. I wrote Christmas cards. In November. This is against all that I know to be good and true. Hence finishing a bottle of wine on a Wednesday night (and that I am now on holiday for a few days). Claire forced me into it - the Christmas cards, not the wine - arguing that we had to send cards early to let people know our new address. It just feels so wrong. Still, at least they are done - and I was able to drink orange wine in the process, so perhaps it isn't all bad.

Exotic Tinned Fruit - Final Bottle, 23rd-24th November 2015

I had remembered this flavour as being somewhat nasty with a chemical aftertaste. It was therefore a surprise to discover that leaving the wine for over three and a half years from making made it more than palatable. This has reached the realms of "rather good", and it is a shame that there are no more bottles left.

I was on holiday when this was opened, just for a day. I spent it painting a ceiling. I can think of better ways to spend a day off. But the move date approaches (rapidly) and the more ceilings painted, the better.

Blackcurrant Wine - Seventh Bottle (A2), 21st-22nd November 2015

It is rare that I go to a concert in which I am not playing, but that was the case on Saturday night. Chris, the clarinettist in Tony's quintet, was the soloist in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto with Harrogate Phil, and three-quarters of the remaining quintet were there to cheer him on. I felt properly nervous as Chris played but, of course, he was brilliant. At the end of long semiquaver passages he visibly gasped for air as a diver might coming up from ocean depths.

On our return I opened up a bottle of blackcurrant, and it was lovely with its alcoholic Ribena taste. We finished it on Sunday after I had spent most the day up a ladder painting an acre of ceiling.