perserving and alcohol

I have made a second batch of the wonderful banana based chutney, though actually the jar in the picture is the first batch not the second, the only one left already so you can see why I made more.

I also picked some blackberries and collected some windfall damsons so have put the damsons in gin and the blackberries in vodka to make liqueurs, with sugar of course.. it will be a few months before i report back on those. I also have some sloes in the freezer which will go in gin. The sloes may have been picked a bit early but everything is very early this year and they seemed ripe.

I have also made blackberry and apple crumble and muffins so we have had plenty to eat too!

Before our allotment open day this weekend I investigated the interior of the abandoned allotments next to the current used ones for apples, if you look on one of the aerial maps such as this one you will see there are a lot of un-used plots and there used to be more, the tip (the buildings on the left) were once allotments too as was the industrial estate off to the right and there are more that were in operation till very recently going up to the north, you can see that start of them in the top middle of the picture.

We have been given permission to re-open the plots between the used ones and the railway as we now have a waiting list of people wanting plots, the triangle above the plots but they have been digging bore holes in the rest of it to see if they can build a new incenirator there. Needless to say we, and the local residences are not impressed. Even if you think an incinorator is a good idea, this one is to cover Coventry, Warwickshire and Solihull, so why they can't find some land that isn't both in an urban lived in area AND green belt I don't know.. the one that is currently there is soon to be decommisoned and the access isn't as good as it would be if they resited to somewhere out of the city on a major trunk road but that would mean being in Warwickshire where the population get to veto such things.. Can you tell I'm not impressed with our councils railroading tactics and the fact two other areas are willing to dump their rubbish on us! I don't call Coventry the black-hole of the area for nothing we get all the bad stuff and none of the good that the surrounding areas get.

Anyway rant over, currently the bore hole making has left big tracks through the old allotments making fruit picking easier so I will be going back to get more apples and such.. and yes Mark if you are reading this I will take someone with me we can carry more that way :)