Your Day (apart from gardening) - what took place? 2023

Thanks John.

Still cold ,but sunny so we're walking into town this afternoon to do a bit of grocery shopping.

Have to make the most of these lovely days.

 

Thanks John
Made some Marmalade, did 2 lots

 

Enjoyed a love!y ,albeit very cold, walk into town.

Had planned to catch a bus home , but found out too late that after 3:30pm the next ( and last) bus up our way is 6:15pm !! So we had to walk back carrying our grocery shop. Found it a bit tough as I am suffering a lot with pains in my legs,one knee and hips lately due to all the dampness caused by the recent rains.
The walk was just over 5 miles in total which on a good day is fine but I also walked just under 4 miles yesterday too. I have only been getting about 2hours sleep a night for the past week as I've been getting up at 3am in pain after going to bed at 12:30am.....dreading tonight.

Our buses are being reduced even further in March, probably end up with none coming our way then.

 

Yum, your marmalade looks great @Logan !

@Upsydaisy that sounds horrid. There is no way I would want to face the task of walking 5 miles while lugging bags of groceries. I hope you've got heating pads on the sore spots. I sew little cloth bags and put rice inside. It only takes about 20 seconds in the microwave to heat one of those up to the right temperature for comfort.

 

Thank you @CanadianLori

 

Did you make that with Seville oranges @Logan

I used to like making marmalade at this time of year when the oranges are available.

 

After under an hour of clearing piles of Acer leaves and removing a dead Phormium, I attempted some weeding but I couldn't feel my fingers so I gave up!!

 

A lot of the Brits round here are buying them in bulk direct from the Spanish growers. They send them all over Europe at a very reasonable price. Oups! I forgot.....you're not in Europe any more... It's a shame as on their website they describe the fruit as 'freshly caught'

 

I used to get them from the local farm shop, they had to put a special notice on them to stop the uninitiated buying them for eating, I've not looked but I assume they still sell them.

 

Hmmm...quite possibly illegal to import them into UK now, or they'll have a whopping import duty slapped on them Have you ever tried making marmalade with ordinary Navel oranges? I used the sweet ones off my little tree and the result was lovely. I don't like bitter marmalade, though

 

Thanks Lori, yes I was not best pleased .

I was more angry at whoever writes up our bus timetables ..no bus for 3 hours!! The trouble is I think they take buses off from their normal routes and schedules to reallocate them to schools and colleges at that time of day.

The walk back was only 2:5 miles.. there and back totalled 5 miles. Even so that was long enough when you are already aching and in discomfort without the addition of carrying groceries too!!

I've dosed up on painkillers in preparation for tomorrow's trip out.

I'm concerned now for tomorrow's bus at 9:30 to go to my brother's place as my sister had to return home for an hour last Friday and wait for the next one when that one didn't run either.

Fingers crossed.

 

Why would it be illegal to import them to the UK?
We import lots of oranges of all kinds, or do you mean illegal to buy them personally from the EU.

Not tried sweet oranges but was always thinking of trying limes.

 

That was a feeble joke... Limes work well too but lime marmalade isn't as useful for slathering over duck boobies With a lime costing €6 each now in the supermarkets, I get a lovely warm glow when picking kgs off the tree-in-a-barrel

 

Seville oranges still pop up annually round here in greengrocers.
We used to use sweet oranges to make the weight up for the last batch of Seville Orange marmalade.
In the past I've made marmalade from both lemons and grapefruit, but I find the pith a bit thick on both of these.