Orange Wine 2020 - Fifth Bottle (B6), 15th October 2021

Friday was not the most relaxing fun day that I have ever had. Two hours of it was spent lying back in a dentist's chair with my mouth wide open as the dentist said things like "Don't worry about the pain: that's normal," and "Try to relax!". In the end he saved my molar and that is worth 120 minutes of discomfort. By the time 6 p.m. rolled around I was ready for my fair share of wine. By the time Taskmaster was on I was sufficiently numbed by orange wine and whisky to be enjoying the day again.

No photos taken on 15 October but this
was what I should have worn to the dentist's

Rhubarb Wine 2018 - Thirteenth Bottle (A2), 18th-24th August 2021

This was very much a mid-week bottle that lasted several days in the fridge. It was okay and served its purpose, but was not a memorable or delicious wine. Medical procedures have figured rather in the timeframe. I won't go into the first one, but everything was fine. On the day the bottle was finished, I went to a new dentist with a toothache. Disaster! Either I shall have to have it pulled or I will have to have a two hour root canal operation followed by a crown. Neither is joyful!

Taken on 24 August to celebrate International Bow-Tie Day

Elderberry 2017 - Eleventh Bottle (A4), 13th December 2020

Sunday was Christmas Card Day - a day that I always dread. The principle of Christmas Cards is one that I wholeheartedly support, and I do enjoy getting them. Therefore, why is writing them such a pain in the arse? Rather than write simply "To X, from Ben & Claire', I put a different snippet of news in each (difficult in 2020). So it takes an absolute age. Still, I managed to do them all, and we drank a rather lovely bottle of elderberry wine (lovely despite the bits) as a reward.

Lovely, despite the bits.

Rhubarb Wine 2015 - Tenth Bottle (B5), 29th April 2018

Chocolate and rhubarb wine is not a good mix. I was disappointed with my first glass: it had the taste of a wine that had aged badly; sour and musty. Claire said she had not picked this up. My second glass was far better and I can only put this down to not having had a mouthful of chocolate immediately before it.

The food we ate was curry (of the bean variety) with fabulous yoghurt pancakes. It all made my eyes water, though. I have a large mouth ulcer on my top lip, which makes eating hot food painful. Claire insisted I take some paracetamol - thinking it unreasonable that her cooking should make me cry.

Crab Apple Wine - Fifteenth Bottle (E4), 22nd-23rd April 2017

Claire has been at a String Quartet course all weekend and on Saturday evening I was her guest for the private concert given by the Bingham Quartet, who were tutoring the course. They played a 1998 piece by Stephen Speer, Shostakovich's 8th Quartet and something by Smetana. All were intense with moments of anger and pain.

Watching a professional quartet is exhilerating - it is so personal. Afterwards we steadied our nerves by drinking most of a bottle of crab apple wine, which went well with the black-eyed bean curry I made. Two errors crept into the making - it was meant to be black eyed peas (but I didn't have any of them) and I mistook an unlabelled jar of paprika for the turmeric required. Yes, I know one is red and the other is yellow. All I can say is that I am an idiot. Still tasted nice, though.

Orange Wine 2017 - The Making Of...

Today is the first day since 3rd March that I have not had stabbing pain in my jaw and that I have not been on a four-hourly diet of pain killers. It is 12th March - nine days after my coronectomy - and until half an hour ago I was starting to believe that everything would be alright. However, I made the mistake of trying to play the bassoon just now. I got no further than putting the reed in my mouth and realising that this was not a good idea. Now, of course, I am worrying that I will never play the bassoon again. Still, I have wine-making as my other hobby, and I don't need a working mouth for that.

Today, after a brief spell in the garden helping Claire to create a herb bed, I started making my orange wine. As ever, this is a double batch for which I needed 24 oranges. Earlier in the week I had picked up three 'family size' bags from Sainsburys. On the whole I prefer to avoid supermarkets for my fruit and veg, but in this instance my inner miser (which is rather less 'inner' than that phrase suggests) won out and I went for what was cheap.

Taking the outermost peel off oranges

I took the outer most layer of peel off 12 of the oranges, and for once was nearly successful in avoiding the pith. This took about an hour and I avoided boredom by listening to a crime drama with Meera Syal on Radio 4 Catch-Up. I have covered this peel with 2 pints of boiling water and I will pour the water (minus the peel) into my bucket when I return from work tomorrow.

Orange peel to be covered with 2 pints of water

I squeezed all 24 oranges, measured the juice (3¾ pints) and poured this into the bucket. To this, I added 9 pints of cold water and 5½ lbs of sugar. Because the water is cold I have not had to wait to put in the yeast and rounded teaspoon of nutrient. This year I am experimenting by not putting in a teaspoon of pectolase. My hypothesis is that the wine will clear without it.

Wine in the bucket

On Friday night (17th March) the wine went into its demijohns. This took little time as there was virtually nothing to sieve out - only a bit of pulp - but I was careful to leave a half-pint gap between the liquid and the top of the demijohn. I don't want a repeat of last month's prune & parsnip shambles with wine froth all over our bathroom. As ever, orange wine at this stage is the happiest of yellows.

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

Rhubarb Wine - Fifth Bottle (A6), 18th-21st September 2016

Sunday found me driving a 21 foot van to Whitby whilst wearing a Superman T-shirt. My colleagues had cycled from Morecambe to Whitby over 3 days and needed someone to drive their bikes back to Leeds. When a call went out for drivers I hadn't anticipated that I would be driving anything other than my (small and red) car. Other than the crash, everything went swimmingly.

The type of van I drove

Back at home Claire asked if I wanted anything to drink. In fact I was so exhausted that I only had one glass of rhubarb wine, which was cold and pink and refreshing. Claire has had the rest of the bottle over the week (with occasional sips from me) because I am on antibiotics. Yet again my wisdom tooth is infected and I live with a dull, nagging, constant pain.

In Whitby with a colleague

Rhubarb Wine - Ninth Bottle (B5), 12th March 2015

Thursday nights are not generally nights to open and finish a bottle of wine. All I can say is "whoops". Both of us felt like we needed it. Claire had come back from the dentist with a new filling and a numb mouth. I am being plagued by ear-wax. My left ear has not been working since Monday and it is becoming both tedious and uncomfortable. So an entire bottle of wine it was, and quite a good one too. Definitely "mid-week" ranking, but at the top end of that spectrum.

Crab Apple Wine - Thirteenth Bottle (C3), 14th March 2014

Mostly I am on the mend. My cold has improved, I am neither shivering or feverish and my desire to flop into bed is only moderate. However, the gum around my one remaining wisdom tooth has flared up again and if it is no better on Monday I will go to the dentist. It has to come out - this is becoming too frequent. Tonight I have tried to numb it with gin, followed by crab apple wine, and this is only partially successful. How very irritating. Still, once this one goes, I have no more wisdom teeth and my mouth should remain pain-free.

My dentist's

Elderberry - Bottle B5, 12th-16th November 2011

I could not have had a Book Launch without a bottle of elderberry. It was, after all, this flavour that started me down the river of wine making. However, the only comment I received about the elderberry was that this bottle was too young and it needs leaving a couple of years. That may be right, but I do not have the patience.

My Tuesday night glass was drunk whilst I was feeling sorry for myself. My final wisdom tooth - bottom left - is making its presence known. I had hoped this one would sit quietly in the background, but currently my mouth is in pain. I have made a dental appointment for Monday, and I know she will recommend extraction. At least this has to be the last time - I have no others.