annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Annual moaning about marmalade This has been one of those days when just about everything I've attempted has been much more complex and difficult than it needed to be so I've set the timer for ten minutes and when that's up I shall stop writing, proof-read (I write the word really in just about every sentence on a first go), post and go to bed. Promise. The biggest hassle today has been marmalade. Old readers will know that this is an annual complaint. Good marmalade requires bitter Seville oranges, which are in season for a few weeks in January/February. They turned up in the supermarket yesterday and Bloke bought a net. Problem 1. A net contains approx a kilo and a half. The blessed saint Delia (D. Smith, British cooking guru), says she can't keep control of more than 2lbs at a time, which is roughly 1 kilo. I have had problems with getting to the setting point with larger quantities so I decided to do two batches, making up the missing few ounces with lemons. Good. Sorted. But then comes problem 2, the shredding of the peel. Mum used to have a cast iron orange peel shredder that you screwed to the edge of a table, putting big chunks in the top, turning the handle and having finely shredded peel come out the bottom. I though Sis inherited this but she denies all knowledge and says she never makes marmalade, so I use my food processor. Or I did till I fucked it up the year before last - totally killed it. So I borrow M's. She dropped it off on the doorstep and I started squeezing and quartering, all that stuff. Then it came time to shred and she'd not included the bit I needed, the blade. I could have gone to fetch it but I was waiting for a phone call from the doctor with regard to my ludicrously high blood pressure. In the end Bloke went to fetch it (The doctor phoned as soon as the door shut behind him) and by 6.30 I had two large pans of shredded peel boiling away. They both needed two hours though and by 8.30 I'm in no state to be fucking about with mega-hot jam and sterilising jars, so that's it till tomorrow. I'd left an envelope in the post box at the surgery with my blood pressure results - had to buy a home monitor - and asked the doctor to call me. She somehow got the message to call me but not the results. They are high though. I've been doing them for two weeks and only had one with a green flash (all good). Most of the others are red (panic) with some orange, for high but don't panic. I checked up lifestyle changes to bring down your blood pressure and they're all things I do/don't do. I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't eat processed food, (apart from sliced wholemeal bread which doesn't include the contents so fuck knows what's in there), I eat shitloads of fresh fruit and veg, never meat more than once a day and not more than five days a week, I exercise, I'm losing weight. She said she'd call again when she can find the results. Meh. OK. timer went. Three Good Things Night night xxx 11:41 p.m. - 11.01.21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||