Elderberry Wine - Eighth Bottle (A3), 24th May 2015

Claire cooked lamb koftas and a bottle of rich, sweet elderberry was the right choice to complement the heat and the spice. We deserved it, though. Sunday marked our second of three days spent cleaning and tidying. Our attic is now clear of all the carpet offcuts left by previous owners, though we have kept the rather splendid 1970s curtains found in a bag. The kitchen counters are clean and we have generally de-cluttered. We are a long way from minimalism, however.

The 1970s curtains, as modelled by me in a break from tidying.

Crab Apple Wine - Fifteenth Bottle (A3), 23rd May 2015

This bottle of crab apple wine was particularly good. It tasted properly of apples - sharp and fruity enough to make me say "ooh" on my fist sip. Claire brought it to me as I was in the process of cleaning cat hair and dust from my wine bottles in the hall. An Estate Agent is coming on Tuesday and in an attempt to declutter we are hiding my wine - all 150+ bottles of it. But that involves cleaning as I go.

The day also saw me condense 3 years of a history degree into one box file and go to the municipal tip twice. But we also had a fabulous meal at an Ethiopian restaurant as compensation.

About half my wine collection

Blackberry Wine - Thirteenth Bottle (C6), 22nd May 2015

The Archers, when it makes an effort, can be splendid. I drank this bottle listening to Ed and Emma Grundy get married and the two Grundy brothers reach some sort of peace. Really well written, possibly made better by drinking blackberry wine (delicious) on an empty stomach.

My other activity while drinking was to sort through two boxes of papers which had everything from O Level essays about Romantic Poetry to some of my Medieval Studies MA work. I am keeping much of it, but have thrown out my Latin revision cards. I spent hours on those.

Orange Wine - Third Bottle (A4), 20th-21st May 2015

It was a strings only sectional on Wednesday at WYSO, so I put a bottle of orange wine in the fridge and settled down to watch Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa on the computer. The British do comedy of social embarrassment extremely well, and Alan Partridge is a complete monster. Excellent stuff.

While drinking this wine over two evenings, Claire and I were mostly talking about the house-move, which inches closer, and getting this one into a state where people might consider coming through the front door. There is so much to do, and orange wine could only help.

Vanilla Wine - First Bottle (4), 16th-17th May 2015

Well, this was as disappointing as expected. It is not comically nasty, but it is not one to which I will be rushing to make again. The wine is dry with a hint of bitterness to it. If you concentrate hard there may be a vanilla taste towards the back. Its best attribute is its light pink colour, and it is never a good sign when the wine's greatest aspect is its tint. However, it is not a disaster.

I opened this wine as our first bottle home, back from holiday. Being on holiday is great, but it is always nice to return. And despite dreaming two nights in a row that he had died, Stan survived the cattery, is much better and no longer needs to wear the Collar of Shame.

If you want to see how I made this wine, click here

Rose Petal Wine - Tenth Bottle (B6), 14th May 2015

I brought this bottle to Suffolk with me because it is Rachel's favourite of mine. We shared it on the last night of the holiday on a day where we had visited both a farmyard barn stuffed with art (including a vast painting by Maggi Hambling with a £70K price tag) and a nuclear power station.

Ann described the wine as "Turkish maidens lying on divan beds scantily clad in harem pants," which I think is perfect.

Rhubarb Wine 2015 - The Making Of ....

Our rhubarb plants, particularly that from Claire's grandmother's garden, are doing well this year. This is despite great sections of them having been put in pots in anticipation of the house move (which finally appears to be speeding up a little). It has been a dry, warm spring so far and all our rhubarb has flowered. I understand that this is a Bad Thing, but the flowers are pretty, in a vaguely alien, threatening way.

I pulled and chopped the first two pounds of rhubarb at the beginning of this month and stored it in the freezer. Today, Sunday 17th May, is our first full day back at home after a wonderful week in Suffolk and Claire's first gardening job was to prune the rhubarb. This produced another 2½ lbs, all from her grandmother's plant. Shirley's rhubarb is far pinker so I got most the remainder from that, even though it has put out less growth and I have seen both our cats pissing on it. I washed this rhubarb with care.

All rhubarb - 6 lbs of it - was cut into thin slices and went into the bucket. I reached for the sugar. There was a space on the shelf where the sugar should have been, which is poor planning. I poured 7 pints of boiling water into the bucket, dashed over to Sainsburys to get sugar, returned, put 6 lbs sugar into the bucket and the remaining 7 pints of boiling water.

Rhubarb in bucket with water and yeast (Champagne variety)

 I put the yeast and 2(ish) teaspoons of nutrient in on Monday morning, stirred twice a day until Friday 22 May, and then put the liquid into its demijohns. Using a collander as a scoop in the first stage made this a rapid job. Claire was going to sit in the kitchen and be companionable, but got bored during the sterilisation and rinsing process, so went to bed instead.

The rhubarb having a particularly frothy ferment

I could have used a pint less water for this wine. At this point it is its usual Barbie pink.