Orange Wine 2020 - Fourth Bottle (B4), 15th August 2021

It was my first full day back home after two glorious weeks on holiday, and it was a restful, relaxing near-ordinary day. Okay, so I did about two and a half hours work, but I also made a cake (gooseberry orange drizzle), had a short walk, bathed with Claire, started my blackcurrant wine and watched an episode of The Crown. We also drank this bottle of orange wine to smoked haddock fishcakes, which was an excellent combination. Both are strong flavours and I could understand not liking either. However, I think both are fab!

Gooseberry & Orange Drizzle Cake

Elderberry Wine 2018 - The Making Of...

Having left it nearly too late to forage for blackberries, I did not intend to make the same error with elderberries. Some years I have left this wine to the end of September. That would not have worked this year. On Saturday 8th September I walked to the open space off Gledhow Valley Road to find that the Council had wreaked havoc on the copse of elder trees. There had been some recent and enthusiastic pruning and no fruit to be obtained. I wandered back, picking elderberries from such trees that I could find, resulting in a respectable 1½ lbs.

Next morning I drove to my usual spot at Kennel Lane and walked to the field that I always use. There was fruit in abundance hanging from trees and I did not feel like I was thieving from the birds in taking two carrier bags' worth. The nettles were neither as high nor as fearsome as the previous year and I was only stung the once.

Much of the rest of Sunday was spent stripping the berries from their stalks, a task enlivened by listening to Radio 4 Comedy on the BBC i-player radio app (which wins the 'Best App on My Phone' Award by a streak). I had a quick jaunt out to look at the eighteenth century bathing lodge in Gledhow Woods, it being open for World Heritage Open Day, but otherwise spent the day on elderberry wine. My total elderberry haul proved to be a little over the 6 lbs needed for a double batch so I have frozen the remainder.

I put the fruit in the bucket and crushed it with a potato masher. I put in 5 lbs 4 oz of sugar and 12 pints of boiling water (exactly the right amount, it proved) and left the mixture overnight to cool. On Monday morning I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase, stirred it around and then ignored it (save for the occasional stir) until Saturday 15th September.

Getting this into its two demijohns was quicker than blackberry - there was less sludge to bung up the sieve. The wine is the darkest that I make and is currently stored in the bath in case the fermentation is too eager. For the moment, it appears to be behaving itself.

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

Rhubarb Wine - Fifth Bottle (B6), 12th-13th November 2015

Dan Benn, our wonderful bathroom fitter, gave me strict instructions to give Claire lots of wine on Thursday night. The latest thing to go wrong with the House is the bathroom - the bath, the sink pedestal and the radiator have all had to be returned to the supplier for being substandard (scratches and cracks mostly). Claire is not finding this easy and is also hugely busy at work. So this bottle was wine as medication and it helped. I detected a slight cheese taste, however.

Gooseberry Wine - First Bottle (6), 8th-10th May 2014

Julia died on Thursday night. Just writing that down makes it a little more real. We came home early from the Lake District to say our goodbyes. In time, my abiding memory will be of Julia-proper rather than ill-and-weak-Julia, struggling for every breath. I weep at inopportune times. At the Sainsbury's check-out wasn't great.

Claire brought me a glass of gooseberry on Thursday night whilst I was in the bath as a suitable wine to mark the occasion. The gooseberries are from Julia's allotment, of course.

I cannot convey the loss.

That's Julia, looking at the camera, singing

Crab Apple Wine - Seventh Bottle (A3), 26-27th July 2012

The first of 2012's exploders. I was sat at the computer on Wednesday night when I heard a 'pop'. Checking Claire in her bath, I ascertained that she was not the cause and ran downstairs to my bottles. I was too late - half the contents had shot out of the bottle, which is impressive going for a bottle stood upright. Refraining from sucking the carpet, I put the remainder in the fridge.

Claire saved me half of what was left for Friday night when I returned home from work at about 10:30, having put in a thirteen-and-a-half hour day. This is not an activity I would recommend. I had a baffled, vacant look that one might find on the walking dead. I drank my wine with rather more enthusiasm that I ate my evening meal.

Hedgerow Wine - Fifth Bottle (5), 16th June 2012

We had a warming winter meal - a sausage and lentil casserole with mashed potato and diced swede - that called for a bottle of red wine. It might as well be February. The weather has been so horrid recently that I have forgotten what sun and blue sky feel like. Hedgerow wine fitted the bill nicely, and we drank our last glass in a shared bath.

Earlier in the day we had played in a workshop on Mozart's 40th Symphony held at Carr Manor School. Claire and I had expected dreadful things, but in fact it was all rather jolly and musically not bad. Being a three minute walk away was just an added bonus.

Rhubarb Wine 2012 - The Making Of ...

I am always pleased when May comes round. Not only is it the month that all trees put out their leaves, looking fresh and green, but it is the first proper month for wine making. One can do April wines - dandelion or nettle - but honestly, why bother? May marks rhubarb season, and that is always a winner.

Today, 6th May, it also marked 'wedding season'. I spent this afternoon playing bassoon quartets at a wedding reception in York. Most people will have a tasteful string quartet, if they have anything, playing Pachelbel's Canon. This bride showed originality and had four bassoons instead, playing Teddy Bear's Picnic and The Pink Panther. It was glorious fun and I hope we went down well.

Earlier this morning I went to Julia's allotment to pick the rhubarb. It was a sunny morning, but chilly for May. I helped net some blackcurrant bushes, to prevent the local pigeons getting fatter, and was then let loose on the rhubarb. I needed six pounds for a double batch and picking this amount proved little effort. I like the way rhubarb stalks come up with a slight 'pop' as the base separates from the plant. There were some very butch stalks and I came away with seven pounds - the remaining rhubarb is in the freezer, possibly awaiting a batch of 'rhubarb and elderflower'.

After the wedding I chopped the rhubarb into pieces of about one centimetre and put it into the bucket. I covered this with fourteen and a half pints of boiling water (I think - I may have lost count with the jugs of water). Six pounds of sugar, the yeast and one and a half teaspoons of nutrient went in the next day.

I put this all in its two demijohns on Friday evening, 11th May. This was a sticky process which took the entirety of Any Questions on Radio 4. Perhaps I should have listened to Radio 3 instead. Any Questions is a tedious programme full of self-important pomposity.

The wine is its usual little-girl-pink, and I have (as always) put one batch in a brown glass demijohn and covered the other demijohn in silver foil so as to preserve the colour. The amount of water I used proved to be just about perfect, though the frothy top of the wine is escaping through the air locks. Therefore, keeping the wine in the batch is justified on this occasion.

Blackberry Wine - Bottle A2, 1st April 2012

Having drunk far, far too much on Friday and only far too much on Saturday, I wondered whether Sunday night should be one of sobriety. My arm took some twisting, I can tell you. Claire piled on the pressure by asking "What bottle should I open?"

Blackberry it was and we drank it to French Onion soup - which is one of the reasons I asked Claire to marry me all those years ago. She won't divulge the recipe in case it renders her redundant.

The wine was as good as ever and the evening pleasantly dull. We each had a bath and I renewed my acquaintance with the computer. Being out of e-mail or Facebook contact for 48 hours makes me depressingly twitchy.

Hedgerow Wine - Bottle 4, 15th-17th March 2012

Wednesday was the WYSO AGM (and that is far too many acronyms in the space of a sentence). Which is irrelevant to this bottle, because I realise we didn't open it until Thursday. I drank that evening's share to sausages and mash, followed by a long hot bath.

Ordinarily we would have finished the bottle on Friday, but I was too sleepy for even a glass after returning from the Wakefield G & S (there - another acronym) Society production of H M S Pinafore, which was all rather jolly in an am-dram kind of way. Buttercup and Captain Corcoran were both good, and the other leads were variable.

Coming back through Wakefield on a Friday night was eye opening. I'm sure dresses never used to be quite that short.

Blackberry Wine - Bottle B1, 10th March 2012

Today's most noteworthy feature was not this wine, lovely as it was, but an experiment I shall not be trying again: I attempted to cut my own hair.

In the past this task has always been performed by Claire using a set of clippers. This morning, when I got out of the bath, Claire was out gardening. Rather than disturb her I thought I would show some initiative and do it myself. How difficult could it be?

My beard trimmer proved ineffective and ran out of batteries, so I got the clippers and applied them to a small area of head. The result? Instant baldness - on one of the side bits where I normally have hair. Oh well - it was only a tiny area, so I adjusted a leaver and tried again, this time with confidence.

Now with a much larger entirely shorn patch I ran into the garden (quickly donning my dressing gown so as not to frighten the neighbours) shouting "Claire, I've had a disaster". She was her usual competent self, gave me a very short cut all over, and I no longer look like I have had a bad experience with ring worm.

Hawthorn Blossom - Bottle 3, 20th-25th October 2011

We opened this on Thursday when I was glum - though I cannot now remember why. Possibly because my finger hurt after I had crushed it on two consecutive days in exactly the same manner. Anyway, Claire thought that I needed both chocolate and wine. Which was a mistake. There is something about Hawthorn Blossom Wine that goes very badly indeed with chocolate.

Leaving the wine in the fridge until Sunday improved it, but even then it is only nearly nice. There are floral, honeyed overtones which should be delicious, but there is something lurking below which makes the entire experience a failure. Still, a glass on Sunday watching QI and another in a bath tonight were just about welcome.

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.