Home Made Orange Mead (Melomel)

At its most basic, mead is simply fermented honey-water. However, a lot of fun can be had by adding extra flavourings! And if you’re not trying to ‘do it like a Viking’ then the addition of yeast will make the results more consistent. Orange mead has fast become one of our favourites. If you’re a complete beginner we would suggest familiarizing yourself with the basics over at Wine/Cider/Mead…

Swallow falls 🤍🤍🤍.

Had the company of little face (aka daughter) on the second half of my road trip...... off to find some waterfalls and paddleboarding.

Wild camping...... loved this place.

Buzzards reach.... the stargazing was amazing

The Milkyway was visible🌌..... shame our phone cameras don't show it very well.

Swallow falls 🤍🤍🤍.

Had the company of little face (aka daughter) on the second half of my road trip...... off to find some waterfalls and paddleboarding.

Wild camping...... loved this place.

Buzzards reach.... the stargazing was amazing

The Milkyway was visible🌌..... shame our phone cameras don't show it very well.

Elderflower is one of our favorite forages. Perfectly timed for a refreshing cordial just when the days are hot enough to want it. It’s super easy to make, and even the time consuming job of removing the flowers is soon forgotten with your first sip. Or even better, get the kids to do that part, they can enjoy the fruits of their labor very quickly so it makes a good project to keep them occupied…

Pickled Wild Garlic Buds

These tasty little bursts of garlicky goodness are super easy to make. Pickled Wild Garlic Buds Ingredients Wild Garlic Buds300ml Apple cider vinegar100ml water3 tbsp sugar1/2 tsp mustard seeds1/2 tsp black peppercorns1/2 tsp pink peppercorns Directions Wash buds and fill jars, the amount of pickle made here will fill about 3 small jarsBring vinegar, sugar & spices to a quick boil, just till…

Wild garlic is one of our favourite wild foods, we make all kinds of this with it (check out our posts on wild garlic kimchi & pickled wild garlic buds too). Here is the recipe we use for this garlicky, tangy, and super versatile wild garlic pesto. We hope you enjoy it as much as us! Vegan Wild Garlic Pesto (makes 1 small jar) Ingredients 150g Wild Garlic Leaves1/2 cup (65g) Pumpkin Kernels…

We went for a pre-MOT check with Mass Motors, as they were so helpful with a previous issue, and they gave us a list of things to resolve before taking Neo for the MOT – all relatively minor and usual MOT stuff. However, replacing one of the parts requires the removal of a lot of surrounding parts to access it which would have landed us a hefty labour charge. Luckily, we have a service exchange in place with a friend who is a mechanic (she fixes his dreadlocks, he fixes her van), so we decided to spend the long Easter weekend visiting him, fixing up the bits that needed doing, and learning with him how to do many of the repairs.

Most of the repairs were fairly straight forward: tie rods, anti-roll bar bushes, a couple of brake lines (pipes and hoses) and pads.. the one job that wasn’t so straightforward was the top wishbone ball joints! In the end, due to the lack of a portable press, we had to lower the engine sub-frame to remove the top wishbones so that we could change the ball joints. It was definitely more than we first anticipated, but having done so, we took advantage of the access and replaced a few extra bits while it was out, hopefully avoiding a repeat scenario any time soon!

And the result? Neo has now passed the MOT, hooray!

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We ended up staying longer than expected, but when your friend provides somewhere so pretty to camp out, who could complain? 😉

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