Last week was a hive of activity in my kitchen. All the autumn fruit was ready to pick but I was not exactly ready to process it all. The best thing I thought was to share it with my friends and do some swaps for other lovely produce.

Starting at my usual 6am burst of energy, the berries, grapes, apples and pears were picked, taken home, washed and in put in the 'entsafter'. This went on most of the day, sterilising bottles, washing up, bottling and labelling was task of the day. After hours of bubbling away bottles of of ruby red juiced came out streaming out of the tube. The smell in the house was divine! 12 hours later 10 beautiful bottles of deep red juice were standing proudly on the shelf.

Some were pick up and swapped the same day, others will be consumed by the boys and I during the course of the winter.

Thank you to Joe for baking some beautiful bread as a swap, for Dianne for her delicicous courgette lemon curd and Sally for getting me the hydrometer so that I can get on to some serious scientific measuring of my Solarventi!

I enjoyed the day, made many people happy with some of my own home grown stuff and they in turn made me happy with their home made produce. Can't be bad. It is so great to have found such a wonderful group of friends.

Thanks for being you.
Karina