Home brewed cider on a Summer evening

The first batch of homebrewed cider is ready. We racked it off into a demi john, let it settle for a day then bottled it. It's nice and dry and was very simple to make; just sugar, supermarket apple juice, cider yeast and a campden pill added at the end to stop fermentation.

It was lovely enjoying the first taste of it in the evening sun, the garden smelling warm and green from the heavy rain and hot sun, a song thrush running through all his tunes in the conifer trees.

We think it's around 11% abv so we won't be drinking it by the pint, just little glasses for this one. I think it will make a good mulling cider so will make sure we have a batch brewing in Autumn ready for Winter

I'm doing a little knitting every other day or every few days and the first sock of the pair is now at the heel flap. I'm enjoying the process and I'm glad I no longer rush through my knitting, focussed only on results. I can only do a little of it these days so I savour the actual stitch making.

At the weekend I did an oven full of baking to make the most of the gas and have frozen lots of little snack cakes which perk up work day afternoons with a coffee. I made a big batch of pea and leftover veg soup too, and Mr CB recently got a haul of yellow sticker meat so the freezer is well stocked. I planned carefully around what we already have before going shopping and this week's grocery shopping came to £16. This is unusually minimal but I do usually manage to pare things down at least a little by careful planning, bulking food out with cheaper ingredients and stocking up when things are cheap. 

A big cost is gluten free food, hence making my own cakes now and also gluten free crumpets, which are very expensive pre-made. Every trip to the supermarket is disheartening unless, in my mind, I reframe it as a game, a challenge to bring the price down as much as I can. That way I feel like I'm winning when I manage to do that and I feel a bit less annoyed when I see the receipt at the end of it.