September/October

I have moaned a good deal about rain in recent months. September and October have made up, just a bit, for the crap weather we had the rest of the summer in England. It has been beautiful - sharp sunlight days with cool breezes tinged with the smell of bonfires. I've been walking the dogs with a 71 year old neighbour who has explained the difference between rosehip and hawthorn and pointed out where you can can find good elderberries or sloes. She has supplied recipes for jams, pickles and wines and the greenhouse and garage is stocked to the rafters with apple and blackberry jams, fiery pickles, sloe gin, gallons of home brewed beer, rosehip wine and my latest discovery - homemade scrumpy.

I suppose it was only a matter of time living in the west country before I discovered the true genius of scrumpy.

Recipe for Homemade Scrumpy

Ingredients:

Apples
Water


Pick apples from park or garden - windfalls will do. Don't wash (you lose the natural yeast on the skin) - leave for a week until the skin gets a bit wrinkly. Core and mash up apples in water. Leave for two weeks in plastic laundry bucket. Strain and leave liquid for another two weeks in bucket. Siphon into demijohns and seal. Leave four more weeks. Bingo - you are a drunken wurzel.

It's that easy. I'm not talking about the sweet fizzy stuff you drank as a teenager and then threw up again. I'm talking about cold, flat, cloudy and deadly potion sold in demi-johns with improbable labels. I'm hoping the home made stuff will rival Westons a scrumpy I have becoming alarmingly partial to in recent weeks. I know it's special from the early sips I've had.

There's that and the prospect of sloe gin at Christmas with stilton and elderberry pickle. Hmmmm.

It was Tom's 11th birthday in September and he celebrated by shooting up his friends at Laserquest in Bristol. Absolutely brilliant. Then we were outnumbered by about fifty 9 year olds who trapped us on a balcony and the lasers were crisscrossing the room like something from Battlestar Gallactica. Pure adrenaline. BTW - I have been reliably informed that the latest TV version of Battlestar Gallactica is a critique of American imperialist disasters in Iraq but as I don't have Sky so I can't check it. Can anyone confirm this?

The sad news from October is that Nelly is no longer with us. She has always been strangely aggressive with other dogs and this has become worse in recent months and she started to get untrustworthy with people. She bit a lady at the kennels she was in for two nights before the summer and after long consideration we decided we couldn't take the risk any more.

The children were very upset as I took her to the vet one day while they were at school after Nelly went ballistic at a dog in the park and almost turned on me. We tried training and even paid for a dog psychologist but I suspect that Nelly always had more desert dingo than dog in her and reform was not really ever going to happen. While we mourn her passing Nog seems untroubled and possibly rather happy that he's getting more scraps from dinner, fuss and attention than before.

I'll sign off now - write with the news please.

BTW if you like African beats like Dollar Brand check Gilles Peterson's show this week - its one of his best:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/gillespeterson/