Rainy Sunday afternoon

What a mucky day! It has rained and rained and rained.

The perfect day, therefore, for a bit of a play in the kitchen. In my drive to make most of my Christmas gifts this year I have been making preserves using my Mum's old jam kettle.

This wonderful old pot holds such memories for me. When I was small my family had two allotments - my Dad's and my Grandad's. Needless to say there were some times of year when my poor Mum was faced with a vast glut of vegetables. I remember so clearly 'helping' her make jams, chutneys and pickles.

I've had to buy my veg from the farm shop but next year hope to grow some of my own. I've made beetroot chutney:

It looked a huge amount when I started but reduced dramatically and I got three and 1/2 jars out of this batch. They are reasonable sized jars though.

I also made marrow and ginger by cobbling together two recipes off the internet until I had one that I had the ingredients for. I've had the marrow in the fridge for over 3 weeks and I think I caught it just it time. Any longer and it would have walked out of the fridge on its own!

The Minx had a friend's party this afternoon so being a devoted Mummy I got soaked through taking her. As Sainsbury's was right next door I popped in to stock up on provisions. I finally buckled to marketing pressure and came home with these two little guys for Ruby to mother:

I know Tesco had them on buy one get one free but I missed that one. They are two packs of PG, with chimp, for £4 at Sainsbury's. Sausage adapted the empty box to make a monkee house :o)

Ruby seems to be wearing that bewildered expression worn by all new parents - especially parents of twins!

Thanks so much for the help Ali and Monkee Maker re: crossing out in Blogger. As you can see I haven't tried it yet but will give it a try this week.

Now, after the suffering I caused you last week I am about to embark on what may, in fact, be a riskier musical venture. I have an eclectic musical taste. I like pop, rock, punk, mod, reggae, new romantic, soul, jazz etc etc. I don't do the likes of Celine, Mariah and Whitney - just can't take it!

To get the ball rolling I'm going to start with this. This is the track that was played at our wedding as we walked up the 'aisle'. As we got married here it wasn't a real aisle in the church sense and we were free to choose our own music. If you don't like this one I'm afraid that's just tough!! This is totally my indulgence :o)

I had considered this one on the way up the aisle to my lovely groom. I was 33 when I got married and I felt the lyrics were apt - '...finally facing my Waterloo...' There, I may just have given away who it is on tonight's link!

I hope you enjoy it. If you really hate Abba please don't tell me as I love them totally and utterly and have seen their tribute band Bjorn Again four times. Last time was with my best friend at the Pavilion Theatre in Worthing. This was an hysterical night out. We sat in a wine bar opposite the theatre prior to the show and were startled to see bus loads of old biddies drawing up. We questioned whether we had got the wrong night. Sadly not. We suddenly felt the years catching up!! We've known each other nearly 36 years, since I was 6 and have had some great funny times and this one was right up there with the best of them :o)