Update in a pickle and GIANT Rat... sort of...

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http://toulousearlydays.blogspot.com/

Well been a while again - must try and do this more regulary!

Last weekend finished off the figs that were ripened on the bushes, the purple ones were now ready, so made some more fig conserve and dried enough in the oven - seem to have the technique now - to fill a preserving jar.

Also made some Lemon Curd - brilliant microwave recipe and then some pickled onions - dont seem to have a picture of them, but made some pickling vinegar and might just have overdone the chilli and spice a teensy, weensy bit... time will tell!

So assuming that there is a severe winter the larder is starting to look like it could get me through to spring - if pickles and conserve are your thing!

Been a busy weekend, and the weather has been fantastic, still sunny, still wearing shorts and still nice enough to be have the doors open until mid evening. Last night was the most amazing full moon, so bright it was casting full shadows.

Took a trip to the local lake with the camera to get out, and came across a family of what I believe are Coypu - a south american rodent - pretty much giant water rats. In the pictures the largest one is about the same size as a cat!

The rest of the weekend seems to have been taken up with Grand Prix and programme production.

Had a play with the A3 printer as well and did a print of Elephants from Kenya photos that looks fantastic on A3 Watercolour paper.

Will have some more fun with that anon, need to get some good frames though to show of the pictures to their best.

Expecting another quiet week at work, although have a couple of monthly presentations to finish off so that should taker care of a couple of days!

all for now...

Time to build an Ark...? or Keeping it regular...

View the original blog here
http://toulousearlydays.blogspot.com/

Two days of pretty constant rain, floods further south and I am very glad to live on the side of a hill, the river at the end of the garden is now a river, rather than the trickle of a stream that is normally there.


Well it has been a while since any new posts here, very slack of me, but sometimes you just cant think what to write that would be in the least bit interesting to anyone else!



So the last bit of fun last week was making some Fig jam... having two fig trees/bushes that are literally dripping with figs means I have spent an inordinate amount of time on the internet researching ways of using them. Last weekend collected about 2.5 kilos of green figs, the purple ones were not quite ready.


Took about 1k and dried them in the oven - 12 hours... - and then took the other 1.5k and made fig jam/conserve - and it came out brilliantly - if I say so myself... certainly was appreciated at work when I took a couple of jars in for my colleagues.





I was hoping to get some more in this weekend, however the weather has beaten me to it and I will have to try during the week if the rain stops...






Have spent a good amount of time downloading a complete website onto the pc so I can do some editing, previously only had it on the laptop and was getting a little like hardwork trying to work on the small screen.





Hopefully going to be able to get the site updated and fully functional in the next week or so, along with editing some video, putting together a newsletter not a lot to do really...





Will try and do regular posts on here and keep things up to date.