In The Pink

We are now on the final count down to our summer holiday! Yey!!!!! I have been starting to collect up the camping gear and the camping lists are printed and updated. There are a lot of little items we do not want to forget but have done on many previous holidays. Oddly enough the most common forgotten item is sheets for the airbed! We are going to Wales again this year to stay on a friends farm in Snowdonia so I have been looking through our photos from the last visit there two years ago and have been remembering the amazing walks we did and what a great time we had. Here is a small photographic summary which you can click to enlarge. I can't wait to get there and get the tent up and the camp fire lit! I have to say Scotland is my favourite holiday destination and when we don't go there for our summer holiday we are both always a little sad that we will not be exploring a new area of Scotland, but Wales is beautiful and does not have midges!

Well the apples are drained and have yielded about 6 litres of fluid which smells and tastes lovely, I am actually loathed to add sugar to it! Here is is: I tried to take a few artistic shots of the tubs it is currently in and failed miserably so thought I would just go with a close up of one showing the beautiful colour. It's in plastic containers at the moment hence appearing cloudy. I may experiment with some of it and try and come up with a few soft drinks as it really does have the most lovely flavour as it is.

In addition to the farmers being out harvesting their crops it is time again to pick the crab apples off the tree. The past few years we have been able to leave them until we return from holiday but the long Spring and Summer seem to have caused them to ripen early and I did not want to risk loosing the fruit. So yesterday I cut 12 lbs of apples from our lovely, small John Downie. The apples are currently stewed and draining in the kitchen and the smell is wonderful. I am making Crab Apple Jelly this year although on the suggestion of my Mum will be trying Crab Apple Wine next year which sounds lovely. I have found a couple of recipes for it here  and here . I have not made either Crab Apple Jelly or Wine before although from the looks of it the wine will be more of a challenge but I look forward to having a go and enjoying the results the year after.