Sussex

The children were off to Airbourne Air Show today, although it was pouring down when I woke up and it still looked pretty murky by the time we'd had breakfast and a minor meltdown from Amber over a jeggings/laundry incident which was my fault apparently. Still, I packed 'em off and went off to lunch with Charles where we saw the Red Arrows fly over us. We went up on to Bo Peep Bostal to enjoy the countryside but it was rather blustery and after about 10 minutes we decided that yes, Sussex is lovely right let's go and have a cup of tea.

We let Mary out for a break from egg-incubating but she wanders around all puffed up and looking a bit crazed which is rather disconcerting so I caught her and popped her back on her eggs. I hope this spell of broodiness doesn't mentally unhinge her...chickens are funny things and I've got my bonkers poultry quota with Maud thanks very much.  The hens have worked out that if they tread on the chicken wire over my vegetables they can get at them, here demonstrated with Ida and my autumn crop of beetroot:

I decided to make some apple wine following the recipe for peapod wine (I'm not sure how transferable the recipes are but hey, nothing ventured) and Charles got to work with the apple processing for the pot:

So that's all cooked down and is cooling now for me to add the yeast, teabag and lemon slices later.

I popped over to Nicky's for a quick meeting of the CCG but I think we're both suffering from being at that difficult stage in any skill where one is too proficient to be happy with dodgy stitches and wonky bits but not good enough to not have dodgy stitches and wonky bits. Hmm. I'm doing a sunflower now as I want to make a big cushion but perhaps I'll make something up so that I have something to show for my crocheting rather than lots of little bags full of things.

It's quite a lovely evening now although doesn't it get dark early?? :-( I took this pic with the 'scene' mode on my camera which has the alarming function of not only being best for sunsets but states that "this mode is appropriate for shooting actively moving children". Well I'll bear that in mind...