I’ve made marmalade today using frozen oranges, partly because we are running out and also to free up some space in the freezer. It’s always very satisfying to make and to have the jars full of golden gorgeousness on the shelves and then on the breakfast table.
There has been a glorious sunset this evening.
The sunset was so very orange, it lit up chimneys across the road.
I’ve spent the day making marmalade, two batches made and one more batch tomorrow – 16 jars of varying sizes.
Bubbles on the Seville oranges
Beginning to boil
16 jars
What a night! There were wild August winds, driving rain and clatters of garden chairs trying to take off. Sadly much of the garden has been flattered as our small landscape has been altered but a disaster can be an opportunity so here we are with a lovely bunch of colour indoors of flowers that we rescued.
As we couldn’t spend much time outside today, we decided to make marmalade with the oranges we froze in January when the all too short Seville orange season was with us. That’s it for the year now. The tiny jars are for breakfast in bed should one of us fall ill. 
My poet friend, Kim Ridgeon, penned the perfect poem for the day and for the strange emotions we are all feeling in these uncertain and disturbing times. Please read it several times and feel the phrases that sum up the unpredictability of our lives right now. I love this poem.
August Wind by Kim Ridgeon
Another busy day of making! First, the rest of the Marmalade so now we have a year’s supply including ‘Breakfast-in-bed’ miniatures and several to give away.
I have finished a pair of Sally-boots for the latest addition to our extended family. They will be posted tomorrow.
Our stair carpet has been beautifully protected prior to painting.
It seems appropriate that today, my Dear Dad’s birthday, I have spent much of the day making marmalade. Dad was the marmalade maker in our house and I used to help him when I was quite young. The smell of the oranges boiling is so evocative of lovely times.
I spent the rest of the day baking cookies for our decorators, ColourGirlz, who start tomorrow on the hall, stairs and landing. I have used an old family recipe but adapted it by adding cinnamon and dried cherries as a very dear friend does. She takes them on long car journeys and they are very much appreciated.
Cinnamon Oat Crunchies with Cherries
I conducted a Humanist Wedding Ceremony earlier in the summer and today received an email with some beautiful photos. This one shows the lovely moment near the end when I was signalling to the music man that now is the moment! The delightfully happy event was held at Charlie’s Boathouse and this was taken on the terrace with the sea as backdrop.
Charlestown wedding
Yesterday I showed you the glowing pots of Seville Orange marmalade that I had made in the afternoon. Ark asked for the recipe so I have put it on my Recipe pages. Here is the link to Seville Orange Marmalade
Robert Frost is one of my favourite poets. Here is Moon Compasses for you.
Moon Compasses
I stole forth dimly in the dripping pauseBetween two downpours to see what there was.And a masked moon had spread down compass raysTo a cone mountain in the midnight haze,As if the final estimate were hers,And as it measured in her calipers,The mountain stood exalted in its place.So love will take between the hands a face . . .
I made lots of marmalade last February when the Seville Oranges were in their brief season of availability and I froze enough oranges for one more batch of the golden stuff we love so much. Today, as it is almost all eaten or given away, I made the last batch and just in time to be able to give our eldest, visiting just for the afternoon, a jar.
Marmalade
Slicing leeks this evening, the concentric circles pleased me.
Slice of leek
Pooh Bear, the great philosopher!
Love and Pooh Bear
We bought our Seville Oranges for marmalade in February but froze the oranges as we were too busy to make it so yesterday we set to and made two batches of the glorious golden stuff. Making it, smelling it boiling, always takes me back to my childhood to the kitchen in Daniell Road, Truro, when my parents used to make enough to last the whole year. Today, I labelled the jars and here they are. The tiny jars are for Breakfast-in-Bed treats!
I was wondering why John Masefield’s poem had come into my head this morning and, as I wrote the above paragraph, realised that the poem and the marmalade making memories belong to the same era! I had to learn this poem by heart when in the top class at Bosvigo Junior School, aged about 11. I loved it then and I do now – it’s the rhythm, the alliteration, the assonance and the sheer magic of the exotic words. I never did like the last verse as much as the first two.
Cargoes Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amethysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rails, pig-lead, Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays. John Masefield
These Alstroemeria flowers are the lovely Mr S’s favourites.
When the Seville orange season was on, for just a few weeks in January, we were too busy to make marmalade so I froze the fruit. Yesterday, however, we ran out – something never heard of in our household nor in the household in which I grew up! So, despite the sunshine, I started the process yesterday and we spent the afternoon completing the making so we now have fifteen jars on the shelves with enough fruit for one more batch still in the freezer.
Marmalade
Sunsets at Porthtowan have been lovely this week so we went down to see it. Sadly, though it was rich as we arrived, it faded before it fell into the sea.
Sunset over Porthtowan
Surfers going home at sunset
Just before the sun faded completely as it slipped behind the cloud bank, a helicopter came over and my shot delighted me, looking as it does as if the helicopter is sitting on a pink balloon.
Helicopter sitting on the sun
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