Home made jam

It all started when Chris asked why I didn't eat his blackberry jam.  I replied that I wasn't that keen on blackberries, except in a crumble, but if he made some raspberry jam, I would definitely eat that as it is my favourite.  While visiting Mum and Dad on Sunday, we picked some raspberries and apples.  The raspberries and two apples were destined to become jam.
The jam was duly made and had the most lovely colour.  Chris added the apples as we didn't have quite enough raspberries for the recipe.

 The jam had a lovely rich jewel-like colour - I was very excited about tasting it.  It reached setting point very quickly (Chris used jam sugar which has added pectin, and no doubt the apples helped too).

 Last night, I had the very good idea of making scones and getting some cream, which is what I did today.

It is amazing to think that the raspberries and apples were still on the plant/tree just two days ago.  The jam is delicious and has an extremely good set on it too.  Yum!

Blossom Time

 Another visit to see Mum and Dad yesterday, and at last, the apple blossom is flowering.  It has been so wet and cold recently that I'm not sure whether any bees are around to pollinate the blossom, so I don't know whether this will be a good year for apples.  We shall have to wait and see.

 Some of the flowers are really not sure about the cold weather, and only just starting to unfurl their petals.

The other sight that can be seen all over the countryside at the moment is the oil seed rape flowering and giving a vast patchwork of yellow across the fields. 

Apples galore!

Above are just some of the varieties of apples that Chris has collected on our various forays into the countryside. He has been studying his books to try to identify them all, but this has proved to be quite a challenge, as there isn't a definitive guide with photographs of all the many hundreds of varieties, as far as we know. There are lots of books with beautiful botanical paintings of apples, but it isn't quite the same as seeing a photograph. Still, whatever variety they are, the greens, browns, reds, yellows and orange colours make a lovely picture.