Less than 2 weeks to go

The countdown to christmas is well and truly under way so, in preparation for 11 guests coming to join us for a few days of festivities, I thought it would be a great time to pull down a couple of walls upstairs and work on turning one bedroom and a dog kennel into 2 bedrooms. Unfortunately the job did not get off to the greatest of starts as the flimsy wood worm infested plank wall that was just nailed down to the floor boards, turned out to be set 6 inches into the ceiling. Now to add to my little mission of a couple of stud walls and a couple of doorways I also have a lave and plaster ceiling to pull down and replace, deep joy.

As Jane wrote the last blog entry, she focused on the important things in life like kids and christmas markets. She completely neglected to mention my experience of cider making local styleee. Under the cover of darkness at a neighbours house, standing adjacent to sacks and sacks of apples, a tractor pulled into the drive towing a medieval piece of equipment. My mission, as the hired muscle, was to sort and load the apples into a hopper which macerated them into a pulp before chucking them out of the bottom of the trailer into a wooden trough. From here they were shovelled on to a Hessian wrapped plank of wood before being wrapped and another sack and plank placed on top. This carried on until the pile of sacks was 3 feet high at which point the whole pile was then moved underneath a 25 tonne hydraulic press. As the pile was compressed the juice started to flow from a small pipe under the trailer and into a cut off barrel containing a little submersible pump. From here it was pumped down an old hose pipe into the wooden cider barrel in the cellar where it will be left to naturally ferment for a few months. All in all an amazing experience which I thoroughly enjoyed being involved in.

We went out yesterday and found this years christmas tree. Although not as big and bushy as our usual trees, we have opted for a tree with roots this year so that we can plant it out in January.