Incredibly windy night last night and it’s getting up again tonight. I mean, very very windy….. Our neighbours left their pool umbrella out last night and it is a tattered skeleton this morning. I woke up at 0430 and had to go and look outside, such was the strength of the fierce gusts. A bit scary…. Luckily, with the daylight, came the discovery that we had no damage at all, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. I also see it is very windy at home in Kent…. the new pattern of winters perhaps…. The odd thing is, it’s not cold, not even a cold wind and unusually, it’s coming from the east.

We popped out after lunch and bought some more preserving jars at China Bazaar and had a fruitless search for jar labels. Came back and I made up a batch of satsuma jam with a dash of brandy. Not marmalade. Jam. It looks really yummy and is an amazing bright orange colour. I also put together another large storage jar of preserved lemons. They are just “sunshine on a cloudy day” in the words of the song……. Amazing bright, natural colour. Thank you Pamela and Eddie for the lovely fruit! I have put the recipe below. Satsuma jam is the easiest of all to make because they are so easy to peel and do not have a lot or even any, pips. Just 3 ingredients as usual.

Recipe: Satsuma Jam

6lbs of satsumas

2 cups granulated sugar

3 lemons (juice only)

Peel the satsumas and cut in half in case there are any pips to remove. Generally not. Blend them till smooth in a food processor or electric blender. Pour the puree into a large pot and add sugar and lemon juice. Bring to the boil and then turn the heat down a bit and let it cook for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring regularly until it is thick, glossy and slightly darkened. It will all foam up at first but then settle down a bit as the liquid is absorbed.

Keep an eye on it in the last 15 minutes as it might stick to the bottom of the pan if you don’t keep it stirring. You can use a sugar thermometer or thermopen to test the set (at least 105C) or the old freezer plate trick. The longer you cook it the thicker it will set. I cooked 40 minutes and it is thick but not like jelly. Still very easily spreadable. Let it cool for 30 minutes then ladle into jars. Optionally at this point you could stir in, or drizzle over, some liquor. I used brandy. You could also try limoncello or Cointreau.

These all natural jams and marmalades are of course lovely on bread, toast, scones, pancakes etc but I don’t eat those items. I like them spooned over natural yoghurt, and even over ice cream. The marmalade is especially yum over chocolate ice cream.

This weird weather is due to last a couple of days and then it will settle again into sun and around 22/23C for our last week. Which will be very welcome, because it’s freezing at home. We have a Hive system that controls our central heating/hot water and various security cameras and of course we have our Ring video doorbell!!! This was quite expensive to buy but has paid for itself many times over due to the enduring kindness of Royal Mail. Despite our Royal Mail Keepsafe arrangement, once again, as usual, Royal Mail have made several deliveries to the house since we’ve been away and we have them all on camera!!!! Good old Royal Mail, doing their bit to give us a full refund again. They come through for us every single time. We have literally never ever not obtained a full refund due to the failure of Folkestone delivery office. Mostly, it’s because they forget not to deliver. However last spring, we thought they’d finally got their act together because they didn’t try to deliver while we were away. We didn’t know whether to be disappointed or not…… But…. they came through for us after all by forgetting to re-deliver on the appointed date or in fact for 10 days afterwards….. sigh…. In the end we gave up ringing them (or rather the amusingly named Customer Service line because you can’t actually ring the Delivery Centre yourself) and went down there and asked them to bring it out from whatever antediluvian shambles exists behind the scenes.

It’s very reassuring to be able to look at the outside of the house and garden in real time and see it hasn’t all fallen down and even more reassuring to be able to check the temperature of the house. We have the water off and the heating set to frost guard which means it comes on if the temperature inside falls below 8C. We turn it back on to normal central heating/hot water function about 36 hours before getting home. Bob checked it a couple of days ago and we had to call on John to help us out as we had battery failure in the downstairs Hive thermostat so it wouldn’t have turned on at all. That would have been a cold welcome. Anyway, he so kindly went up with a couple of batteries and got it working again. Bob tested it from here and everything switched on and off so it will be fine for our return in December.

Habibi came up with his friend the Metal Worker who welded the leg back on to one of the twin beds. It had gone a bit wonky. He is also quoting us for extending the metalwork along one section of our wall upwards to accommodate our climbers.

Made some more satsuma jam this afternoon and another jar of preserved lemons. I think that’s it for my preserve making this time. Got a nice stock for home and for next year’s guests at the villa.