Seville Orange Marmalade

They've been having frosts down in Spain this winter which has affected the crop of seville oranges.  So apparently this years crop was small and consequently a bit expensive. It would therefore be stupid to waste any of this fantastic fruit, which is what I almost did.

I bought my oranges from a lady who makes Pickles and Jams down in Dorset and sometimes appears at River Cottage HQ. http://www.rivercottage.net/ 
  Just after I got them home I had to dash up to Scotland to see the elders and what with one thing and another I quite forgot they were languishing in the bottom of the fridge.  

So yesterday and today I've finally got down to making my Marmalade. This years batch seems to be even more tangy than usual.

Marmalade was a favourite of Mary Queen of Scots who believed it helped restore her health when she had been overdoing it, which appears to have been most of the time she was in Scotland  judging by the number of lovers she had to have murdered.
There is a belief  that the name is derived from Mary Malade
Unfortunatly it didn't cure her sore head.

I see max at Bursledon got there a couple of weeks before me. http://bursledonblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/lady-marmalade.html

Toast for Breakfast then! Excellent!

Cramps

There is a lot of sage writing around concerning boat-building. And in my ever-so-humble, quite a lot of it is sanctimonious drivel.  There are expansive tomes scribed by experts, articles scribbled by amatuers, and bloggs beaten together by blaggers who barely know one end of a boat from another but they all agree that you can never have enough cramps.

 So why is it I only have three?

 You can see them above doing their best to hold a seat riser in place when they are obviously too short to reach, you have to learn to be imaginitive when fitting out a boat.

I do however have quite a few of those big clothes-peg thingys Iain Oughtred favours.

Down below you can see them being pressed or is it sprung into service on the other riser.

A load of old lead weights liberated from HM Cartographic office are holding the floors down while the epoxy goes off.

But in a moment of excitement I started to think about the gunwales and I have to admit defeat.  They are so springy i think I'll have to give in and buy some more cramps. 

The Centreboard case isn't glued down yet, but we're getting dangerously close, maybe tomorrow.  

When I started this build I was confident that I would crack on and get it done in quick- time.

I started just around the time I found out I was going to be a Grandad.

Well just to remind me how long it is taking, guess who had her first birthday yesterday!

Many happy returns Brooke