Thwarted

We’d expected to entertain this weekend: Dr Brennan the Artist and the Huntly Two were going to come – we solemnly exchanged weather data, which revealed a light dusting of snow and otherwise salubrious at both ends of the journey, but alas, they ran into a wall of blizzard between there and here and had to turn back. Problems up here seem to be very localised, at least for the moment. Preparations for their reception, fortunately, were not very far advanced except that I’d made a cherry cake. We had some of it with Olga, who is now fine, and the rest we have frozen. One thing which I had planned to do with child labour in prospect was to make marmalade (there were Seville oranges in the New Deer deli the other day), so I’ll have to make it myself. Marmalade theories are manifold. I like to separate peel and innards, soak the peel to get rid of some of the bitterness, boil up the insides and put them through a sieve, separately boil and shred the peel, then assemble and cook. It’s quite a process, and stickiness is apt to spread far and wide. I could quite have done with a couple of juvenile sous-chefs, but never mind. Phase one has happened, soaking the peel and dealing with the juice, and tomorrow I will boil the peel and make up the marmalade. One thing to be said for the whole marmalade set-out, sticky it may be, but it smells wonderful.