Prune & Parsnip Wine - Fifth Bottle (B5), 22nd-23rd June 2017

Work has been very noisy of late. Not just literally noisy (it has been that as well) but mentally noisy. I come home and my head is full of things to be resolved and incidents of the day just gone. On Thursday night I was partially successful in creating some stillness, or at least shifting the noise to a different quality, by bassoon practice, cooking, Doctor Who and Prune & Parsnip Wine. We were careful to leave half a bottle for Friday - and supplemented the evening drinking with a rhubarb & ginger gin and a nightcap of whisky. Claire got me a bottle of Welsh whisky (Penderyn) for my birthday and it is Wonderful.

Crab Apple Wine - Eighteenth Bottle (B4), 21st-22nd June 2017

This is a busy period at work, and Wednesday was particularly so. It was the second night in a row of arriving home late, shovelling down some food and hopping in the car to play my bassoon somewhere. Consequently, Claire and I drank rather more of this bottle than intended on Wednesday night. It was midsummer, though, and we can be excused for celebrating the solstice. On the basis that England's mini-heatwave continues, we drank the wine outside until nearly eleven, leaving only half a glass each for tonight. That barely touched the sides so now I am on Prune & Parsnip.

Elderberry Wine - Fifth Bottle (A2), 18th June 2017

Whilst it was not my birthday on Sunday, I had my birthday tea. This was steak cooked rare, exotic mushrooms and a green salad, followed by chocolate grouting for pudding. It was meant to be a mousse but 'light' and 'fluffy' appeared not to be on the menu. All delicious and all accompanied by a fabulous elderberry wine.

The day had been the hottest of the year so far, and with typical timing we spent most of the afternoon indoors, rehearsing Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony for the concert next weekend. Still, we spent the evening outside.

Fig Wine - Final Bottle (4), 17th June 2017

Disaster! There will be no Fig Wine this year. More accurately, there will be no fig wine made this year, which means the dearth will hit in the 2018-19 season. Mom and Pop came over bearing these bad tidings, but we opened this bottle anyway - reinforcing the idea that any spare figs should come my way. Their tree has not produced the goods for a September crop.

We savoured this wine with a Middle Eastern feast involving chick peas, tomatoes, lots of garlic and a spinach and feta pie. It was a perfect Saturday - much of it spend outside basking in the June warmth, everyone enjoying each other's company. An excellent day, despite the news about the figs.

I think the fig disaster is second from the left, third row down.

Rose Petal Wine - Thirteenth Bottle (C5), 17th June 2017

Saturday was one of those rare British summer days that is pleasantly hot with no hint of mugginess, where it is a delight to spend all parts of the day outside. My parents were visiting and a bottle of rose petal wine in the garden was ideal. The wine's colour is now golden rather than pink, but it glowed in the late afternoon sunlight and it was no chore to finish the bottle before we ate. I had wondered if we should 'do something' to entertain the parents, but sitting in the warmth, chatting about this and that was just ideal. I am so lucky to have the family that I do.

Our pond is not the size this photo suggests

Apple Wine - Final Bottle (4), 11th-13th June 2017

"Not Entirely Nasty". I had expected this to be awful - the last bottle of apple wine ended up down the sink. Therefore, when it turned out to be drinkable I was pleasantly surprised. 'Apple' was not a detectable flavour - the wine was more 'cheap white' than anything.

We opened the bottle on Sunday night, when we really should not have (already being a bottle down) and finished it on Tuesday. I spent Tuesday evening baking peanut butter cookies to take into work for my birthday. It is a strange tradition that the one celebrating his birthday should be the one who provides the biscuits.

And here is my recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies:

8oz butter (or margarine)

8 oz brown sugar

8 oz white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

8 oz peanut butter

16 oz plain white flour

2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat oven to about 200/ gas mark 6

Mix butter, sugar (both sorts), eggs and vanilla together (my recipe says ‘cream these’ but I’m not sure how that differs from mixing).

Mix in peanut butter

Add flour, bicarb and salt and mix in.

Roll small dollops of mix (about a teaspoon) into balls (smaller than a conker, larger than a marble), put on ungreased baking tray and press down with a fork (make a criss cross pattern). Don’t put the unbaked biscuits too close to each other, because they will expand in the oven. Bake for about 10 minutes

This recipe will make tons of biscuits - over 60 probably.

Mint, Elderflower & Rhubarb Wine - The Making Of...

I have had possibly the most middle class, middle-aged weekend one could ever imagine. What is more, I have absolutely loved it. On Saturday night I went to a string quartet party and ate Italian cheese brought by a guest who is renovating a villa near Padua. On Sunday afternoon, Claire and I wandered around 17 gardens as part of Chapel Allerton's Open Garden Festival, and then sat in a bar to drink craft beer. I feel I have reached the zenith of the bourgeoisie. And making Mint, Elderflower & Rhubarb Wine hardly struggles against that particular mold.

The Base Ingredients

Our rhubarb is past its best, so I picked the majority of my 3 lbs the previous weekend, sliced it thinly and put it in the freezer. The defrosted rhubarb gave an air of limpness and exhaustion in its bowl.

The Elderflower tree I picked from

I went foraging for elderflowers on Sunday morning, 11th June and picked far more than I needed in half an hour (most of which was taken up with travelling to and from the source). I stripped the flowers from their stalks in the garden, achieving a discoloured thumbnail in the process. Doing this outside meant that the insects I had collected had an opportunity to escape and our windows would not be covered by tiny flies. I stopped stripping once I had a pint of flowers (this took about an hour) and I will compost the rest.

Elderflowers that went into the wine

For the mint, I gathered both spear and peppermint from our garden - a slightly larger handful than the two previous years, and sliced this up.

Spearmint from our garden

All the ingredients went into my bucket and I poured in six and a half pints of boiling water, releasing a heavy scent of both elderflower and mint into the kitchen. I then added 3 lbs of sugar. The yeast and a teaspoon each of pectolase, nutrient and tannin went in on Monday morning, 12th June, before I walked my six miles to work.

The ingredients in my bucket

I put the liquid into its demijohn on Friday evening. As I was pouring the last of the wine from the bucket into the jug, I heard a clunk of something solid hitting the jug. It was the half-ounce weight - made from brass. I had used this when weighing rhubarb and forgotten to remove it. It is now noticeably shinier than the other weights in its set and I fear that I have ruined the wine. If it has a metallic taste, this will be why.

Less pink than pure rhubarb

If you want to see how this wine turned out, click here.