Orange Wine 2016 - Eleventh Bottle (A3), 14th May 2020

Thursday was not a good day. There is water dripping through our kitchen ceiling and I found out that Eric from Brooke North's post room and Renate have both died. Eric was killed by prostate cancer and Renate by a weak heart. She died alone and in November, and that makes me sad. A genealogist is trying to find out if there are any relatives, but I will not be able to shed any light on that. Anyway, we had finished the orange wine by the time I was rung by Mike about Renate, so I did not raise a glass to her. Next bottle, though ...

In memory of a fellow bassoonist

And here we both are, about 7 years ago

Blackberry Wine - Seventh Bottle (B4), 3rd-8th March 2016

Ordinarily it does not take five days to get through a bottle of Blackberry Wine. That is reserved for the most horrible of my brews. However, I abandoned Claire on both Thursday (curry with Darren and Nigel) and Friday (a Brooke North reunion to say farewell to Stuart) nights. This left Claire alone with a bottle for company - and she showed remarkable temperance by not finishing it. I had the final glass on Tuesday night: just to make sure there was nothing wrong with it, you understand. There wasn't.

Crab Apple Wine - Ninth Bottle (C6), 27th-30th January 2015

I was out in Ilkley playing wind quintets when this bottle was opened, and out in Leeds drinking too much beer when it was finished. Between times I had one glass by mistake. Claire asked me on Wednesday night "Would you like ...?" and I said "Yes Please," before hearing the question. I had anticipated "... me to leave the computer on?" but instead received a glass of crab apple wine. Which was a result.

On Friday night while Claire was drinking the rest, I was catching up with old Brooke North colleagues. It was a lovely evening - particularly seeing Robert, who I worked closely with for 8 years and have probably not seen eight times since 2005. But I did have too much beer.

Christmas Tutti Fruti - The Making Of ...

As last year, we are away at Christmas, so I started this wine on 18th December. In place of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, Claire stuck on a CD of Christmas Carols from around the world. Unsurprisingly, the majority were European.

As is tradition, I cleared the freezer of its fruit, leaving 8 oz sloes for gin next year and handful of blackberries for crumble. We may now be able to have the luxury of icecubes.

This year there is a greater variety of fruit than previous years, though - alas - no elderberries. I have 1 lb 13½ oz blackberries, 1 lb 10½ oz sloes, 1 lb 2 oz green gooseberries, 12 oz rhubarb, 10 oz grapes from my mother's garden, 9¾ oz blackcurrants, 9¼ oz strawberries, 8 oz red gooseberries, 2 oz cranberries, 1½ oz crab apples and one satsuma. To my calculations, that equals 7 lbs 14½ oz fruit plus one satsuma, which is about right for a double batch. It is currently sitting in its bucket defrosting and I shall mash it all up and add the sugar and water tomorrow.

The fruit before mashing

It is now 'tomorrow', Monday, and the day has not gone as planned. In the night a minor sore throat deteriorated into fever and shivering, and I have spent much of the day in bed. At least today was not a working day. As Brooke North closes at the end of this week I cannot afford to be ill. There is too much to do before our computers get taken on Thursday. What I have managed to do today, though, has been to mash the fruit (making my Christmas wish whilst doing so), add 6 lbs of sugar and pour over 12 pints of boiling water. When the first six pints went in there was a wonderful smell of summer and autumn fruits.

The yeast and one teaspoon each of nutrient and pectolase went in on Tuesday morning. I then waited until Saturday, Christmas Eve, before putting the wine into its demijohns. I timed this so it coincided with the Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College Cambridge. This has not succeeded in putting me into good Christmas cheer. I am too snotty for that, and I spent most the time feeling desperately hungry - which was remedied afterwards by a cheese sandwich. I could have done with a pint more water in the recipe, as this would have allowed me to discared rather more sludge than I have done.

Two (underexposed) demijohns of Tutti Fruti

Raspberry Wine - Bottle 6, 22nd-23rd December 2011

Finishing work for the Christmas holidays is always a happy occasion, no matter how good the job. This year, though, there is a sadness and emptiness attached. Brooke North has now closed. A firm whose origins go back to 1833, and which I joined 164 years later, is no more. Even though I step into a new, exciting job in January, I wish this had not happened.

We opened the raspberry wine in fondness for things past and raised our glasses to Brooke North. And then we ate bean burgers with salted lemon cous-cous and a tomato sauce flavoured with cumin and garlic.

I finished the last glass shockingly early today (about 4 p.m.) whilst starting the Christmas jigsaw.

Elderflower - Bottle A3, 25th November 2011

Well, 2011 has been a massively strange year. It has been one of extreme highs and lows, and today has been one of the latter. Brooke North, the firm that I joined in 1997, and rejoined in May this year, is closing. Once again I am redundant and my future is uncertain. I made the wrong choice in April. I should have chosen Jarndyce & Snagsby. At time of writing I am feeling surprisingly calm about it all - maybe this is down to the elderflower wine (which is fabulous) and the two enormous whisky macs from earlier in the evening. Or perhaps it is because I have recognised that worrying is a choice. And just at this minute I choose not to.

[NB - This is a delayed posting - and there has been plenty of worrying since!]

Orange - Bottle B4, 8th-10th August 2011

I am no longer a policeman. I never was, of course, but I am no longer employed by West Yorkshire Police. This has nothing to do with the riots sweeping much of the country over the last few days (Leeds being an exception). More with concentrating on the Brooke North job, and the police finding a replacement for me. It has been an excellent job - varied and slightly off-the-wall. Much of the time I was making things up as I went along, but it all seemed to work - and the police constables for whom I did the work were surprisingly grateful.

The bottle of orange wine was started during my last day there and drunk slowly throughout the week, with my last glass in a hot bath listening to eighteenth-century scandal on Radio 4.

Rhubarb - Bottle A6, 20th-21st May 2011

This bottle marked the end of my first full week of work this year. It has also been a week where I have been out every evening - mostly playing music - hence an exhausting, yet satisfying, five days.

After much soul searching and a good deal of procastination, I have decided which job option to take. Brooke North and remaining within my comfort zone wins out over Snagsby Jarndyce and the excitement and/or stress of managing and marketing a department. I shall, of course, never know if this was the right decision. Two glasses of rhubarb wine did not make it any clearer.

Crab Apple - Bottle B1, 17th-19th May 2011

Claire is drinking the last glass from this bottle and eating her own version of Scooby Snacks (which is actually addictive Bombay Mix) as I write. And now the cats are having a tussle on the bed. Oh, the excitement of a Thursday night in suburban Leeds.

This Crab Apple has been particularly tasty - sharp, fresh, and just a little bit zingy. We have drunk a glass each after various orchestra rehearsals. Tuesday's Sibelius was sounding ropy, and the concert is on Sunday. Yikes. Wednesday was my first day back at Brooke North, and it is a different firm to the one I left: smaller and tighter. Orchestra that night was a new piece - 'Alice on the Beach' by Philip Henderson - and very promising it was too.

Claire has now finished her Scooby Snacks, and I must sleep.