Cider for Christmas?

I am not sure if any of the cider will be ready for Christmas. Some of it should be. We racked it off this weekend, but one or two gallons are still fermenting furiously. It is astonishing that although every gallon was made on the same day, in the same conditions, and all with assorted apples, no two jars are alike. They have all been on the same windowsill, but some started late, some finished early, the colours all vary slightly and the taste – as far as we have tested – also varies from very sweet to getting dry. NONE – so far – taste sour or vinegary I’m glad to say!

Morning sun gets the cider bubbling

A slight thaw towards the end of last week – many wild birds are very glad of the food we are all putting out, and now finding more that had been covered by the snow. The blackbirds are especially fond of the apples that are not going to last in storage. Waxwings are about in the oak tree at the top of our road, and spotted woodpeckers have been seen (but not by me). Tremendous icicles formed hanging gardens and broke gutters; now it has turned icy cold again and the partially melted snow has refrozen to a skating rink. I never took to skating.

Hanging Gardens

Snow on snow….

As most of the country will have realised by now, last Thursday’s centimetre of snow was just the beginning! We now have 30cm of it outside, and as our little uphill road is unadopted, there’s no prospect of it getting cleared. We spent yesterday afternoon digging tracks to get the car shifted to the bottom, as we are low on hen food and felt panicked enough by the forecast of heavy falls today to get out and stock up. Back home, now, burning logs and drinking last year’s sloe gin… the only foraging to do will be from those toilet rolls sprouting oyster mushrooms on the window sill! Being snowed in does allow you to catch up on jobs that tend to get left – I have baked and frozen cakes, and shelled and roasted all the hazelnuts. Eaten some, too…..

The snowy landscape is beautiful, and people in Bankfoot are out on foot and meeting neighbours they never spoke to before, while the kids swarm all over the little hill of the Monny on sledges and are not missing school. But I have some anxiety – it’s only the first of December. We can only expect winter to deepen. Is this the landscape for the next three or four months?